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OLD 
PLANTATION DAYS 



BY 

ARCHIBALD RUTLEDGE 

Author of "Under the Pines," "The Banners oj the Coatt^'* 

"Tom and I on the Old Plantation," 

"Plantation Game Trails," etc. 



WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



^'^' 






.^\.'^' 



COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
THB OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
FIELD AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, 1918 
SHORTSTORY PUBLISHING COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, 191S, 1919, BY 
THE SPRAGUK PUBLISHING COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, 1908, 1909, 1910, 

1911, 1913, 1915, 1918, 1919, BY 

PERRY MASON COMPANY 

Copyright, 1921, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reser'ved 



SEP-3'Z; 



©CI.A624275 



TO 
WILLIAM MANN IRVINE 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 

He is not like another one 

Of all my friends. He stands alone. 

Beyond the field and bounding wood. 

Far on the seashore's solitude, 

A Tree behind a rugged Rock 

Has long withstood the breakers shock. 

The Rock is bold and clean and hard; 

Its face by tempests old is scarred. 

It changes not in sun or rain. 

In calm, or raging hurricane. 

It has an aspect nobly grand. 

Interpreting for sea and land 

The grandeur of the gales that break. 

But cannot once this Titan shake. 

It has a beauty fine and grave, 

A beauty wrought by wind and wave. 

Sometimes in maelstroms it is drowned; 

Sometimes by wild foam-flowers crowned 

As if the mad Gale understood 

The Rock's calm-couraged hardihood. 

And gave, the harrying waves among, 

A tribute to a champion strong. . . . 

No storm this outpost has escaped; 

Its strength by hardship has been shaped; 

By it, in nights of fear and gloom. 

The Terrible was overcome. 

It won in conflict, not in ease. 

Its power of tremendous peace. 

Such shelter as it gives the Tree, 

My steadfast friend has given me. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

For permission to reprint certain of the chap- 
ters in this book the author makes grateful 
acknowledgment to the editors of The Youth's 
Companion, Field and Stream, The Black Cat, 
The Boys' Magazine, and Outing. 

The pubhshers are also indebted to the 
Youth's Co?npanion for permission to use the 
illustrations. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 
I 



I Judge Napier's Sentence . 

II What Scared Kitty 

III The Aim of the Hunterman 

IV My Colonel 

""V The Whitehorn Buck 

VI O Ringing Bells! . 

VII Any One's Turkey . 

-—VIII The Golden Robber 

IX The Haunted Oak 

■~- X A Monarch of the Sky . 

XI The Duel in Cummings . 

■*»XII At Low Tide 

XIII The Strategy of Galboa . 

XIV The Romney Spectre . 
— XV The Lone Bull of Maybank 

XVI The Token Flood . 

'^ XVII Joel's Christmas Turkey . 

XVIII The Banded Death 

XIX The Black Mallard . 

XX A Fox and a Conscience . 

— XXI The Fawn 

XXII The Secret Killer 

"^ XXIII SciPio Makes a Shot . 

--• XXIV A Pair of Mallards . . 

—'XXV Ghost Point 

XXVI The Silent Champion . 

XXVII Shadrach and the Fiery Furnace 316 

XXVIII Margie Has a Man 334 



13 
25 
37 
46 
60 

75 

84 

93 

115 

125 

134 
142 
156 
170 
180 
198 
213 
221 

235 
246 
259 
271 
282 
292 
306 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

"His bearing was superb" .... Frontispiece 

FAOINa 
rAGB 

"Broderick called back faintly, 'Here, Jason ! But 

I'm done for. Save yourself " . . . . 8 

"It was a monstrous reptile — a diamond-backed 

rattler of the swamp" 22 

"But the golden eagle was not to be baffled by a 

young doe's defiance" 86 

"The mother was struggling wildly but vainly in 

the sucking mud" 178 

"In a moment he saw a great gray form clear a 

bush and leap at the child" 268 

"It was a twelve-mile paddle down from the plan- 
tation" 282 

"Two flashing bodies wrapped in gorgeous battle" 314 



OLD PLANTATION 
DAYS 



JUDGE NAPIER S SENTENCE 

IT was only after a desperate struggle that 
Julian Broderick, a state policeman, had 
mastered the fugitive. Broderick could 
not remember having ever had so stern and 
prolonged a chase and so sudden and fierce an 
encounter. The affair happened, too, on a pe- 
culiarly lonely stretch of beach between the 
solitary pinelands and the waste sea marshes. 
Broderick knew that had the struggle ended 
differently many a day would have passed be- 
fore his friends learned of his fate — if they 
ever learned of it. After the posse had aban- 
doned the pursuit, Broderick had dogged his 
man through swamps and across rivers until at 
last he had come upon him just as the fellow 
was about to cross a deep tidal estuary. In 
the clash that followed the law had triumphed, 



2 Old Plantation Days 

and as soon as Broderick had handcuffed his 
man the two began the toilsome march to Sell- 
ers, the nearest settlement. 

The prisoner was Jason Jones, a powerful 
negro, whose reputation in his community at 
Rosemary up to the time when he robbed Ash- 
ton, the storekeeper, had been good. Jones 
had fled on the night of the crime. The deed 
had been done on a Friday. It was not until 
the following Tuesday that the robber was 
caught; in all that time, Broderick felt sure, 
the silent man who now marched before him 
had had hardly a mouthful to eat. Compared 
with Broderick, Jason Jones was a giant; and 
the state policeman felt that he should have 
had small chance against so formidable an an- 
tagonist if the man had not been exhausted 
by the pitiless and protracted pursuit. Brod- 
erick was sorry for the fellow, and he intended 
when they reached Sellers to see to it imme- 
diately that the man was decently cared for. 

The two men arrived in the seacoast village 
at sunset, but a strange sort of darkness had 
already set in. A sharp misty rain, driven by 
an insistent east wind, had been falling for an 
hour. The huddled houses of the small settle- 
ment showed lights in them. It was an eve- 
ning to be indoors. Broderick, weary phys- 



Judge Napier's Sentence 3 

ically and mentally, at last brought his captive 
to the post office. Sellers was the kind of vil- 
lage that has only one officer of the law, who 
serves as constable, storekeeper and postmaster, 
and Broderick was an old friend of this man, 
whose name was Jim Laws. 

"Jim," he said, "I've got a man here with 
me. Guess I'll have to ask you to let me keep 
him here to-night." 

"Right, Julian," the other answered, gazing 
with interest on the powerful form of Jason 
Jones. "Tell me what you need, Julian." 

"I must take this man on the truck to the 
city the first thing in the morning. We've had 
nothing to eat, Jim, for a good while." 

The postmaster busied himself behind the 
counter; and soon cheese, crackers, canned sal- 
mon and ancient gingerbreads were forthcom- 
ing. These he set before Broderick. 

"Jason," said his captor, not without kind- 
ness, "I'll take the cuffs off now for a while so 
that you can eat your supper." The negro 
muttered thanks. 

The postmaster, who had been about to close 
up shop when the two men arrived, slouched 
into his overcoat. 

"Stormy wind coming up," he remarked; "if 
it doesn't get too bad, Julian, I'll have my wife 



4 Old Plantation Days 

send you up a pot of hot coffee, I'll tell Dave 
Janney about stopping for you in the morning." 
In a lower voice he added, "Come to the door." 
And when Broderick had complied, the post- 
master whispered, "Julian, do you want any 
help with this fellow to-night? I can come 
back if you think you might need me." 

"No, I can manage him," Broderick replied. 
"There's no reason for you to come back." 

The door, which the storekeeper now opened, 
was blown violently against the wall. The two 
smoky lamps in the room flared convulsively. 
Broderick shot an apprehensive glance toward 
his prisoner. 

"Regular storm," he said by way of fare- 
well to the postmaster, who stepped forth into 
the rain and the night. 

To be left alone for a night with a prisoner 
was no new experience for Broderick; he took 
the situation as a matter of course. 

"Jason," he said, raising his voice somewhat 
in order to make himself heard above the wind, 
"there's a bench over there, where you can 
get some sleep. I'll put the cuffs back on you, 
that being according to orders and regula- 
tions." 

The negro made no protest. In his silent 
way he seemed to be sensible of the kindness 



Judge Napier's Sentence 5 

that Broderick had shown him. When the 
handcuffs had been adjusted, the fellow went 
obediently to the rude couch and lay down. 
There was something resigned about his man- 
ner, as if he had realized that there was no use 
trying to escape the hand of the law. 

Jason soon slept, though the night was no 
night for sleeping. In a chair tilted against 
the counter sat Broderick, trying to read by the 
dim lamplight a week-old paper. Outside the 
wind had slowly Increased until now it was al- 
most a cyclone. The watcher was sure that he 
heard a great tree go down. The frame build- 
ing began to creak and groan. 

"No chance for Jim to send that coffee," he 
kept saying to himself. As the hours wore on 
toward midnight, the violence of the gale in- 
creased. Jim Laws' store was especially ex- 
posed to the force of the blast. The storm 
was coming from the east. There was nothing 
in the village of Sellers between the sea marshes 
and the post office. A small lumber yard was 
to the north. The few scattered dwellings 
were a considerable distance away on the land- 
ward side. The post office had to take the 
full fury of the tempest. 

About an hour before midnight Broderick, 
now thoroughly alarmed, went to the window 



6 Old Plantation Days 

on the leeward side of the building. In the 
darkness a storm-lashed tide was raging before 
a seventy-mile gale. The salt water was al- 
ready under the building. Knowing the ways 
of coastal storms, Broderick realized that this 
was a hurricane out of the West Indies. At 
any moment the rising tide might sweep from 
its foundations 'the rickety structure in which 
he and his prisoner were sheltered. Crossing 
the room to the windward side, he saw that 
water was already on the floor, and that salt 
spume was driving in through the cracks in the 
building. 

Broderick hurriedly set three mail sacks and 
certain boxes of store goods on the counter. 
He would try to keep what he could out of the 
wet for Jim Laws. There was no chance that 
the postmaster would get back, for he and his 
neighbors, too, would be fully occupied In get- 
ting their families out of their endangered 
houses to places of safety. Broderick and his 
prisoner would have to shift for themselves. 

With Jason, exhaustion had had its way; he 
was sleeping through the storm. His huge 
form lay cramped on the small couch. Brod- 
erick was glad that the man should rest, but 
the time had come to awaken him. His deci- 
sion to arouse him was hastened by a grinding 



Judge Napier's Sentence 7 

crash, which was followed by a heavy down- 
pour through the roof. A live-oak tree had 
fallen on the building. 

"When live oaks go," Broderick muttered, 
"it's time for us to leave!" 

Even after the fall of the tree through the 
roof the negro slept; Broderick had some diffi- 
culty in awakening him. 

"Jason, sit up and listen to what I have to 
say." 

Broderick waited until he was sure that his 
prisoner had full possession of his senses. 

"Jason, we are caught in a storm — you un- 
derstand? You and I have to leave this place. 
Now, I want to give you the best chance I can 
to get away. I am therefore going to take the 
cuffs off. You are to stay with me as long as 
you can, Jason. If things get so bad that you 
have to save yourself from drowning, look out 
for yourself. But when the storm is over, you 
are to come back to me. Is it a fair deal and 
agreement?" 

"Yes, cap'n, more than fair," the towering 
black man replied, evidently impressed by 
Broderick's quiet manner, which was in high 
contrast to the howling gale. 

At that moment there came a heavy thud- 
ding against the windward side of the build- 



8 Old Plantation Days 

ing, then a smashing, splintering blow. A 
heavy stick of pine timber, drifting from the 
sawmill near by, had been driven like a ram 
through the side of the building. The waves 
drove it farther in, and twisted it, so that now 
through the gaping hole the sea water rushed. 
The spumy salt tide rushed also through the 
door that Broderick opened. On the thresh- 
old the two men stood for a moment. The 
white man was afraid that the negro might not 
be willing to venture forth. He turned to call 
to Jason, and at the same time took a step 
downward into the wild tide-race. 

"Take my hand, Jason; let's try to get 
through this together." 

Even while he was speaking, he was thrown 
violently against the building, and the hand 
that had reached out for Jason's was clutching 
the air. With a groan, Broderick sank into 
the seething black waters. A heavy timber, 
companion to the one that had rammed the 
building, had been driven against him. His 
leg was broken near the thigh; he could neither 
swim nor stand; he would surely drown. 

Into the wailing darkness came the huge 
form of Jason. His bulk loomed monstrous 
in the doorway. 

"Cap'n, where is you?" he shouted. 




"P.RODERICK CAr.LEl) I!.\CK lAIXTEV, 'IlKRE, JASON! 
DONE l"OK. SAVE Vol' KSl'LEF' "— Pn(/c 9 



BUT I'M 



Judge Napier's Sentence 9 

With his feeble fingers trailing idly against 
the side of the building, with his breath almost 
gone from another savage thrust of the cruel 
timber, Broderick called back faintly, "Here, 
Jason ! But I'm done for. Save yourself. 
Keep the wind at your back, and you'll get into 
the woods. Save yourself." 

In the oblivion that surged down upon him, 
the doomed man in the water was hardly aware 
of the giant form that towered above him in 
the storm. But great arms were under him, 
lifting him. A voice of hope spoke to him. 
A strength to master the strength of the storm 
had come to shield him. 

It was noon of the following day; and though 
the wind was still high, the clouds were break- 
ing. What had been the village of Sellers was 
now 'a desolation. Three miles inland, in a 
pinelander's stout cabin, lay Broderick. Jason 
had brought him there through the storm, and 
the first object the aching eyes of the state po- 
liceman caught as he opened them was the 
huge form of the negro, seated near the fire- 
place. 

"You've come back, Jason," said Broderick, 
"as you promised. You are a man of your 
word." 



10 Old Plantation Days 

"I didn't never gone, cap'n," the negro re- 
sponded simply. 

Then the owner of the cabin told of the ex- 
ploit of Jason, In ending he said with some 
show of feeling, "He carried you just like a 
woman would a baby, Julian; and he would not 
rest till he had you as comfortable as you could 
be made. He must be a mighty faithful man 
of yours." 

"He is," said Julian Broderick. 

That was a strange trial which, two weeks 
later, was called in the courtroom of Judge 
Trevelyan Napier in Charleston. Jason Jones, 
accused of robbing the Ashton store in Rose- 
mary, was at the bar of justice. The judge had 
heard the evidence; and in his charge to the 
jury he had suggested that, if the twelve gen- 
tlemen found a verdict of guilty, he would see 
to it that the punishment met the offense. He 
intimated that the robbing of country stores 
was a practice that, so far as he could effect 
it, would have to cease in Charleston County. 

"Jason Jones," said Judge Napier, address- 
ing the prisoner, "the law gives you the right 
to make any statement you may wish to make; 
do you wish to say anything for yourself?" 

"Please, sah," the negro replied, "make my 



Judge Napier's Sentence 11 

fine as light as you can. Fse mighty sorry I 
done broke in the store. My wife is dead, and 
I has seven head of chillun. I broke in the 
store 'caze they been hongry." 

At that moment there was a stir in the court- 
room. Broderick, lying on a cot, was brought 
in. The doctors at the hospital had not yet 
permitted him even to use crutches. From his 
bed of pain he told with evident effort the story 
of the storm. Through it all the listeners were 
spellbound. Judge Napier cleared his throat 
suspiciously. 

"Gentlemen of the jury," he said at the con- 
clusion of the policeman's story, "retire for 
your verdict. Find according to the evidence." 

In a few minutes the men returned with the 
verdict of guilty. 

"Jason Jones, stand up and hear your sen- 
tence," said Judge Napier. "We find you 
guilty of robbing the Ashton store. But we 
also find you guilty of saving your captor's life 
at the great risk of your own, and you stayed 
by him as you had promised to do. The 
amount of damage that you did the store is 
about five dollars, which I, in an unofllicial ca- 
pacity, will make good. The account of the 
law against you is cleared by your late conduct. 
Jason, you are a free man. May you be a good 



12 Old Plantation Days 

one. Return home now and work hard for 
those seven children. Mr. Broderick, here, 
and certain other gentlemen in the room have 
thrown together and now hand you this little 
gift of a hundred dollars. Jason, I am con- 
vinced that you are naturally a brave and good 
man. Be brave and good always. You may 
go. You are free." 



II 

WHAT SCARED KITTY 

THE very first intimation Maj. Meri- 
wether Bohun had that anything was 
wrong was the tremendous bound that 
his mare, Kitty, gave. Had he not been an 
expert horseman, the little thoroughbred's sud- 
den dash would surely have unseated him; but 
he managed to keep his saddle and to pull in 
the mare. 

"Whoa, girl!" he said gently, gathering in 
the lines with his left hand and patting his 
mount soothingly with his right. "What is it 
that scared you, little one? There's nothing 
on this old swamp road to frighten any one, 
Kitty." 

But there evidently was; for the mare was 
trembling and blowing her breath spasmod- 
ically through her wide, quivering nos<-rils. 
Maj. Bohun knew from those signs that Kitty's 
keen senses had detected some danger on that 
narrow, dark, lonely pathway. 

It happened on the old road leading from 
Maj. Bohun's plantation in the Santee country 

13 



14 Old Plantation Days 

to the neighboring plantation of Wedgewood, 
which, except for a few negro tenants, had 
long since been deserted. Moreover, it hap- 
pened at night. The major was sure that his 
mare had scented danger of some kind. Her 
nervousness was increasing every moment; she 
kept fidgeting, and then began to give unmis- 
takable signs of intending to bolt. 

"One of the girth buckles may be jamming 
her," the major said to himself. " I'll get off 
a minute to feel if everything is all right." 

He dismounted and led the frightened mare 
forward a few paces; then he stopped her and 
his hands began to fumble over the buckles 
of the girth. For the moment, he let the lines 
fall loose on the horse's neck. In that moment, 
whether the mare realized that her master was 
off his guard or whether some stray wind had 
wafted to her another scent of her peril, she 
whirled suddenly and, snorting loudly, gal- 
loped back down the black passage of the road 
along which she had come. 

There the major was left standing, three 
miles from home and three miles from Wedge- 
wood. He was on an elevated part of the 
road, on what had once been a causeway; and 
that particular point was near the heart of the 
swamp that separated his own plantation from 



What Scared Kitty 15 

Wedgewood. Yet, strange as it may seem, 
Maj, Bohun's presence in such a place at such 
a time had come about in a perfectly natural 
way. 

That afternoon he had promised to go over 
to Wedgewood to see a sick negro. The day 
had been hot; a thunderstorm had come up 
just as the major was about to start on his 
ride, and for more than an hour a wild tem- 
pest had shaken the tall magnolias and swayed 
the great live oaks that stood round the major's 
house. The sun was setting when at last the 
rain ceased. 

With the major a promise was a promise. 
He had sent word to the negro that he was 
coming, and nothing would have kept him from 
fulfilling his obligation. The major was a 
proud man; yet his pride was productive of 
the highest virtues — generosity, courage, hos- 
pitality, and gallant adherence to a fine code of 
honor. There was no man of his county who 
had suffered more or who complained less, who 
had had more cause for tears yet who had pre- 
served more genuinely his light heart, his merry 
smile, and his ringing laughter. 

Behind his rambling old plantation house, 
many parts of which had acknowledged the 
triumph of time to the extent of leaning de- 



16 Old Plantation Days 

jectedly, stood a little brick building. It had 
been a smoke-house, but the major had fitted 
it with benches and a fireplace. There the 
many negroes who came to see him could have 
a warm and sheltered waiting place. From 
there, as soon as the storm had abated, Major 
Bohun had called Will, his ancient negro serv- 
ant. At the foot of the steps Will had stood, 
with his battered cap in his hand, and with 
the last fine drops of the heavy shower falling 
upon his gray head. 

"Will," the major had said, *'I want you to 
saddle Kitty for me. It's stopped raining, and 
I'm going over to Wedgewood to see poor Joe 
Wilson." 

Maj. Bohun made his tone final. He knew 
very well that Will would be sure to object to 
his plan. Long, faithful service had given the 
negro the privilege of advising his master on 
all matters. 

"You gwine there to-night, Mas' Meri- 
wether?" he had asked, with strong disapproval 
in his tone. "Dat road is so bery slippery 
after dis rain, sah, and Wedgewood is a long, 
lonely way off, sah." 

Although the objection was dutifully made, 
the negro would really have been disappointed 
if the major had not kept to his word. It 



What Scared Kitty 17 

would have been the first time it had ever 
happened; and the dusky servitor was not at 
all beneath appreciating a delicate point of 
honor, and of considering it as his own as well 
as his master's. 

"No; I must go, Will," the major had an- 
swered at once. "I shall be ready as soon as 
you get the horse here." 

Down at the stable, while Will was adjust- 
ing the bridle and saddle on Kitty, he kept 
muttering proudly to himself, *"Cose he gwine! 
I done know he wouldn't bruk his wud ! No, 
sah, not eben to a sick nigger ! Bruk his wud ?" 
he asked himself with scornful incredulity, to 
afford himself the satisfaction of stoutly deny- 
ing such an absurdity. "Not him! Dat's 
about all we got left on dis ole place now; but 
we ain't gwine to lose dat! No, sah, not so 
long as me and Mas' Meriwether libes. You 
hear dat, Kitty?" 

Meanwhile Maj. Bohun had been taking 
stock of what he could spare for the sick man 
at Wedgewood. The bundle that he finally 
tied up consisted of sundry little packages of 
groceries, the waistcoat of an old suit of eve- 
ning clothes, a flaming red tie of antique de- 
sign and a woolen muffler. It was an odd as- 
sortment of gifts for an invalid; but the major 



18 Old rianlalion Days 

did not trouble himself about that. The gifts 
would carry his affection; and that was the most 
that any gift could carry. 

It was an hour later, when he was riding 
along the lonely swamp road, that something 
had frightened Kitty. 

After his mount had galloped off in the dark- 
ness, Maj. Hohun stooii doubtfully in the black 
gulch of the roatl. The package for the sick 
man he had stuffed into one of his greatcoat 
pockets, and he now put his hand on it rem- 
iniscently. 

There was everything to take him back home, 
it seemed: this danger, whatever it was, should 
take him back; the fact that he was now on 
foot should make him turn rather than go on; 
it would take him more than an hour to walk 
to the negro cabin at Wcdgewood, and he well 
knew how uncomfortable he would be when 
he arrived. But in spite of all that Maj. Bo- 
hun did not hesitate. Mis mind had made 
him pause, but his heart had had only a single 
purpose. He would go on. 

All the dark and lonely way to Wedgewood 
the major puzzled over Kitty's fright. There 
were several things that might have caused it. 
Out of the lonely vastness of the monstrous 
swamp might have come a roaming black bear; 



What Scared Kitty 19 

it might have been a negro fugitive from one 
of the county chain gangs; it might have been 
a rattlesnake, the sinister and penetrating odor 
of which will make even the best horse un- 
manageable. 

Before the major started forward he had 
listened intently for a sound that might betray 
the identity of the creature that had frightened 
his mare; but except for the lonely wind griev- 
ing through the towering pines the silence of 
the moldering swamp was unbroken. 

Once, indeed, he heard the far-off and mel- 
ancholy note of a great horned owl; but it was 
so weird and remote that it seemed a tone of 
the deep woodland wilderness itself rather than 
the voice of a living creature. 

"I don't know what it could have been; I 
give up," Maj. Bohun muttered to himself; 
" but it certainly gave Kitty a bad scare. She'll 
go into the stable lot at home. I hope Will 
doesn't find her to-night; he would worry a 
good deal about me." 

An hour's walk through the silent, cavernous 
woods brought the major to the borders of 
Wedgcwood, and soon afterwards he came to 
Joe Wilson's cabin. 

Matters were worse than Maj. Bohun had 
anticipated, and he was heartily glad that he 



20 Old Plantation Days 

had come. From the dim couch beside the 
dark fireplace where he lay, the sick negro 
looked up at him with grateful eyes. 

"I knowed you would come, sah," he said, 
rousing himself to make the effort of speaking. 
He tried to sit up in the light of the smoking 
lamp, but he had not the strength. 

The major busied himself to make Joe com- 
fortable. The invalid was alone in the cabin, 
and was too weak to help himself; but Maj. 
Bohun knew what to do. First he conferred 
his gifts, and that lightened the negro's heart. 
Next he made the fire blaze brightly. He then 
unwrapped the groceries he had brought, and 
used the paper to stuff up a drafty crack above 
the negro's bed; then he put on a few old pans 
and began to cook some of the food. And all 
the while he kept talking cheerfully to the 
stricken man, whose only reply was a reiteration 
of the solemn statement: 

"I sholy would 'a' died dis night, Mas' Meri- 
wether, if you hadn't 'a' come." 

When the sick man had had his supper, the 
major began to prepare to return; but there 
was such a dumb appeal in the negro's eyes that 
he speedily came to a different decision. 

"Joe," he said, "I believe I'll just stay here 
for the night. Kitty got away from me, and I 



What Scared Kitty 21 

don't want to walk all the way home in the 
dark. I'll just sit in this chair by the fire. 
You go to sleep now, Joe, and I'll be right here 
when you wake." 

The negro could not thank him, but he sighed 
with deep content and closed his eyes peace- 
fully. The depth of his gratitude became ar- 
ticulate in his dreams; for once he cried out 
poignantly, as if in protest, "No! No! He 
done say he would come!" and then subsided 
into deep slumber. 

When morning came, Maj. Bohun was still 
sitting beside Joe; and when the negro woke, 
refreshed and much better, he saw the old 
planter's kindly face. 

Joe's fever was gone, and his brain, he said, 
was clear. 

"You had a good night, Joe," said the ma- 
jor. "You are going to get well now. I'll 
send Will over with some things for you this 
afternoon; and to-morrow I'll come again my- 
self." 

Into the radiant dawn of a golden September 
day the major stepped; and as he walked 
briskly down the plantation road, he squared 
his shoulders and hummed blithely an old love 
melody. He loved the woods; and this walk 
home through the dewy freshness and glim- 



22 Old Plantation Days 

mering beauty filled him with pure joy. On all 
sides the marvelous beauty of the Southern 
forest withdrew into rare beauty; the vistas, 
in ending, suggested a diviner loveliness beyond 
them. 

It was, indeed, so beautiful that Maj. Bohun 
did not think of the sinister experience of the 
night before until he came almost to the place 
where Kitty had deserted him. Then he re- 
membered; and he was not at all surprised to 
see the faithful Will coming down the narrow 
causeway to meet him. 

"He's found Kitty with the saddle and bridle 
on her," said the major to himself, "and has 
come over to see what has happened to me." 

But suddenly Will stopped abruptly in the 
road; then he gave a shout and jumped back. 
Maj. Bohun came up quickly; Will was calling 
to him to be careful, and was pointing to what 
lay on the causeway. 

Spanning the road between him and the ne- 
gro, Maj. Bohun saw the thing that had fright- 
ened Kitty. It was a monstrous reptile — a 
diamond-backed rattler of the swamp. Its 
massive body could not have been less than 
nine feet long. 

It lay at a peculiar, awkward angle; but 
its broad, malignant, spade-shaped head was 



Whc{t Scared Kitty 23 

alertly raised, and its cold, yellow eyes glit- 
tered ominously. About the grim and terrible 
mouth there was an expression of savage 
cruelty. The lips were pallid, drawn, deadly; 
but the huge rattlesnake seemed to have con- 
trol of the forward part of its body only. It 
could strike, but it could not coil. Its back had 
evidently been injured. Yet, partly because of 
that very injury, it was the most dangerous 
and formidable monster of the lonely Southern 
swamp. 

The negro made a detour through the bushes, 
and now stood beside Maj. Bohun, who told 
him of Kitty's breaking away. 

"And there's what scared her," he added, 
as they gazed at the hideous rattler; "no won- 
der she bolted from me." 

"But dat snake ain't been lyin' here all 
night?" the negro asked, staring, fascinated, 
at the dread reptile in the roadway before 
them. 

"I believe I know what happened," the ma- 
jor replied, "Kitty shied when we passed the 
snake. She winded him, but she did not know 
where he was. Then, when she broke and 
galloped back, she ran over him and injured 
him. Yes, he has lain there all night. What 
a monster!" 



24 Old Plantation Days 

It took the two men the better part of half 
an hour to cut long poles in the swamp and to 
kill the powerful rattlesnake. The major then 
counted the rattles; there were twenty-nine. 
He also saw where the mare's hoofs had 
crushed the back of the reptile. 

"See here, Will," he said, pointing to the 
deep wound, "here's where Kitty scored. This 
snake must have been maddened by such tram- 
pling," he went on, half to himself, "and would 
have been wild to strike after such an injury. 
Now if I hadn't gone on to Wedgewood," he 
mused aloud; "if I had turned back. The road 
is so narrow here, and it was so dark — " 

Maj. Bohun cleared his throat slightly. The 
negro, whose eyes were wet, said hurriedly 
and in a tone of assumed assurance, "But you 
didn't been in no danger, sah, 'cause you had 
done promised Joe to come to see him. And 
we don't neber bruk dat Bohun wud, sah." 



ni 

THE AIM OF THE HUNTERMAN 

THE negroes in the golden-wide ricefield, 
as they reaped rhythmically, were sing- 
ing melodiously; their steady advance 
bowed before it the tall ripe grain; the mellow 
sunshine steeped the scene; there was the 
glamour of autumn and harvest-time in the air. 
It was cool for September in South Carolina, 
and there were hints of fall in the air; though 
that radiant, reddening, ripening time had as 
yet been stayed from the heavy-foliaged trees 
that fringed the ricefield. Toward Ned Als- 
ton, the planter, who was watching the happy 
workers with delight, there now advanced the 
smiling Scipio, the grandson of the old profes- 
sional slave hunter of Eldorado; and, much to 
the pride of this unique character Alston al- 
ways addressed him as "My Hunterman." 

Scipio well deserved the title. No Cherokee 
Indian who ever ranged the pine forests and 
the cypress swamps of the South had under- 
stood them better than he. He possessed a 
certain untamed element in his nature which 

25 



26 Old Plantation Days 

served to ally Iiim to all wild things and their 
ways. His occupation was never fixed, unless 
roaming can be considered an occupation; real 
work he disdained. But Scipio was full of pic- 
turesque accomplishments. He could pick the 
guitar, pray with much emotion at revival meet- 
ings, arbitrate differences among the negroes, 
and prescribe medicines in cases of sickness; 
and these remedies, being gathered from plan- 
tation woods and fields, could be recommended 
in that they were without money and without 
price. But by birth and breeding Scipio was 
a hunter. He alone could, after night, make 
a direct road home out of the most desolate 
and trackless swamp; he alone knew where the 
wariest old buck of the branches would lie, and 
at just what point in the vast level pinewoods 
a running deer could be cut off. In all such 
matters, Alston had been accustomed to defer 
to him. The planter had to confess, however, 
that Scipio was hardly to be accounted an eco- 
nomic asset of Eldorado plantation; but he cer- 
tainly made for sentiment and romance, and 
was as fine a figure of the black man as the 
Santee country had produced. 

Tall and sparse, he had the power of endur- 
ance written in the movements of his limbs and 
in his easy attitudes of repose. All his actions 



The Aim of the Huntcrman 27 

appeared to be without effort, and he did things 
without appearing to strive. In feature, he 
was more like an Indian than a negro. His 
eyes were deep-set and keen, with a masked 
ghtter of forest-wildness in them. The expres- 
sion of his face was quiet but indescribably 
wary, while the gleam of his ready smile al- 
most constantly lighted his cheerful counte- 
nance. 

And now, as Scipio approached Alston, who 
stood under a gnarled live-oak on the ricefield- 
bank, the planter eyed the negro's musket with 
mock disapproval. 

"Well, Hunterman," he said, "and what are 
you loaded for this summer day?" 

"Cap'n," the negro returned, "I come from 
Laurel Hill swamp. Two big bear done take 
up there, but I couldn't find them to-day. I hab 
a ball-bullet in my musket, sah," he went on, 
stroking the long barrel of his formidable 
weapon. 

The eye of the planter rested with amuse- 
ment yet with admiration on Scipio's gun. 

This musket was of an age unknown and of 
a fashion long forgotten. Short in the stock 
but marvelously long in the barrel, it was 
throughout so pitted with rust-spots and pow- 
der-scalds that it frequently, when fired, emitted 



28 Old Plantation Days 

spurts of angry flame. The misshapen ham- 
mer looked ancestral, almost prehistoric, while 
the nipple was nothing but a worn stub. But in 
the hands of the redoubtable Hunterman, and 
charged with the double load which he was ac- 
customed to using, it was a deadly weapon. 
The sound it made was unlike that produced 
by any other kind of gun. Scipio's musket 
blared, and it did so alarmingly. This fear- 
some roar was known to all dwellers in the 
Santee country, and what it meant filled every 
one who heard it with deep pride in Scipio's 
daring and prowess. On stormy twilights, 
when the wild-ducks would be pouring into the 
old ricefields, a sound like the crack of doom 
would crash the stillness of the plantation re- 
gions, and would reverberate for miles up and 
down the misty river. Then the negroes, hug- 
ging their cabin fires, would say, "Eh, brudder, 
what chance is a duck got 'gainst a noise like 
dat?" Again, when the roar of the musket 
would come from the pine woods, there would 
always be some negroes who would hear it and 
would remark, "Deer can jump and run, but 
he can't jump powder and he can't outrun shot, 
— not when brudder Scipio opens fire on him." 
So now, when Scipio laid this extraordinary 
weapon down on the dewberry vines that had 



Tlie Aim of the Hunterman 29 

matted themselves on the slope of the ricefield 
bank, Alston eyed it with affectionate fun. 

"Time you were getting a new gun, Hunter- 
man," he said; "some day she's going to blow 
up and scatter you over a ten-acre field." 

But Ned Alston's admiration for Scipio's 
skill as a woodsman now suffered a certain 
eclipse and depreciation, as, looking across the 
brown stiff stubble, over which the heat-waves 
shimmered and swam, he saw the Hunterman's 
wife toiling faithfully with the men and with the 
stronger women, though her own child was but 
a few weeks old. Yet it was hard to get angry 
with the picturesque Scipio; one might blame 
a domestic nature for such neglect, but not a 
nature which was essentially wild, restless, un- 
tamed. Yet the planter could not help saying: 

"Scipio, you know this is no season for you 
to hunt bear. Why aren't you in that field 
reaping rice? You know Amy ought not work 
as she is working yonder, while her baby is so 
young. She had to bring him down here with 
her to-day; he's down the bank there, under 
the wahwoo bush. Amy ought to be at home 
with the child, and you ought to be in the field." 

But the Hunterman ignored the planter's 
cogent reasoning. 

"I done seen him yonder," he smilingly said, 



30 Old Plantation Days 

the light of a deep, shy, wild, woodland affec- 
tion for his one baby coming into his eyes; 
"he done been asleep," he added softly, and 
still smiling, as if such a performance on the 
part of his baby was both wonderful and amus- 
ing. 

The disagreeable subject of work was not 
again referred to; for Scipio, taking advantage 
of its temporary diversion, straightway began 
to tell Alston of a family of black fox-squirrels 
near the northern bound of the plantation that 
had been marked for the winter's pastime of 
the planter. The talk continued to be of things 
woodland until Alston moved out from under 
the little oak. thinking he would step down the 
bank to see what progress the harvesting would 
show from a diflterent angle. Like every 
planter, the world over, when he emerged from 
the shelter which had cut oft his view of the 
sky, with its tokens of fair or stormy weather, 
he glanced upward. Scipio, equally solicitous 
about such matters, but from far difterent rea- 
sons, also looked up. Both men saw at a 
glance the same dread apparition. 

With wide and powerful wings outspread in 
the heavens, in one of those last lowering cir- 
cles ere he should fall, a great bald eagle was 
w^heeling. Unconscious of the presence of the 



The Aim of the Hunterman 31 

two men standing beneath the oak, he had been 
circling above them, they knew not for how 
long. And the moment they discerned him, 
certain at last of his reconnaissance and of the 
exact position of his prey, he eagerly arched 
his mighty wings and volplaned roaring out 
of the sky. His snowy head, with its cruel 
beak partly open in the heat of the hunt, was 
slightly outstretched. His stocky legs were let- 
ting down their talons to grip their prey. The 
fall of the eagle was terrible, a fearfully beau- 
tiful spectacle; impressive, but most sinister in 
its splendor. 

Alston cried, "What an eagle, Scipio!" 

But the dusky Hunterman, like lightning to 
think when wild life was in sight, had Instantly 
discerned the goal of the great harrier's fall. 
He marked the tragedy in an instant. 

"My lir baby," he cried brokenly; — "dat big 
eagle's gwine to get him !" 

The negroes in the ricefield, who were work- 
ing at a distance of some acres from the bank, 
were unaware of the impending disaster. They 
were reaping happily, laughing and singing. 
Even if they had seen and had realized what 
was taking place, they were far too distant to 
help. The eagle might have heard their 
shouts, but he would not have released his prey. 



32 Old Plantation Days 

Always bold, the bald eagle Is amazingly so 
when a coveted victim, almost within his 
clutches, seems about to be taken from him. 
In the waving field, the little child's mother 
was singing with the rest, swinging the flashing 
sickle rhythmically and laying the golden reaped 
grain in rich windrows on the brown stubble. 

At first, only the planter and Sclpio were 
aware of the terrible scene now being enacted 
before their very eyes. If the child was to be 
saved, they alone must do it. Yet what hope 
had they of succeeding? 

The plumed wahwoo bush beside which Amy 
had laid her child was more than a hundred 
yards from them down the grass-grown, briar- 
matted bank. It would take the men fifteen 
seconds to reach the place; and by then the 
eagle, bearing his prey, might be far beyond 
the cypresses on the river-bank, or even beating 
his powerful way over the broad river itself. 
It was a desperate moment. 

From his great height In the sky, the eagle 
had detected a movement of life near the bank; 
and the colorless cloth In which the baby was 
wrapped had not given him reason for any 
suspicions. He saw prey before him, far from 
the workers in the wide field. 

He wheeled lower, gaging the distance and 



The Aim of the Hunterman 33 

marking his victim with the piercing sight of 
fierce clairvoyant eyes. Whether it was a 
fawn or the young of some other animal, he 
knew not; It mattered not to the great bird of 
prey. The little creature was alive and de- 
fenseless; therefore he would fall upon It. 
With his curved talons wide, he dropped like a 
black thunderbolt out of the blue sky. The 
wind roared through the hollow arches of his 
wings. His talons ached for the fatal grip. 
His steady eyes were aflame with cruel hunger 
and the anticipation of its Instant satisfaction. 

The moment that Ned Alston realized the 
terrible import of Sclplo's words, he sprang 
forward with a shout, and would have raced 
down the bank, almost beside himself as he 
was with pity and horror. But the Hunter- 
man, with a touch on his arm, stayed him. 

"If you shout, Cap'n, he will fly faster," said 
Sclplo. "We couldn't get him now no how. 
But wait a minute, please, suh." 

The huge eagle, whose fall had been com- 
pleted, and which had for a moment been bur- 
ied in the grass beside the bush, now rose heav- 
ily above the bank. Gripped in his talons and 
held close to his great body was Sclplo's baby. 

But the Hunterman was going to have some- 
thing to say in the matter. He was kneeling 



34 Old Plantation Days 

on the bank, his old musket at his shoulder. 

"Scipio!" the planter cried out poignantly, 
"what are you going to do?" 

"I'se gwine to shot him," the negro returned, 
in tones that betrayed not a tremor. 

Alston suppressed a wild desire to protest 
against what he felt sure would be a peril as 
grave to the child as the eagle's attack. But 
instinct told him it was better not to speak. 
The Hunterman was taking aim. The shot 
would be most difficult as well as dangerous. 
It was at a small moving target, and the negro 
had told Alston that his musket was loaded with 
one ball — "a ball bullet," meant for bear in 
the Laurel Hill swamp. 

In the fleeting second while the planter 
crouched breathless beside the kneeling negro, 
he caught the expression on Scipio's face. It 
was tense but not nervous, and flint-like in its 
determination. The eyes gleamed steadily. 
There was not a quiver in the statuesque black 
figure, immovable as marble. 

The workers in the ricefield had heard Als- 
ton's first shout, and the nature of the tragedy 
was borne in on them by one of their number, 
who, being a hunter, cried out the danger. 
The big eagle caught their gaze at once. Now 
they could see the child, wrapped in the drab 



The Aim of the Hunter man 35 

cloth, struggling feebly. They could not hear 
the pitiful little cry that came to the ears of 
Alston and Scipio. Amy, the mother, had be- 
gun to run wildly across the stubble, waving 
her arms, shouting, and weeping impotently. 
But the great eagle had nothing to fear from 
those far-away pursuers. 

Then on the air the musket of Scipio blared. 
The giant marauding bird collapsed in his sky- 
ward flight and fell heavily in the marsh on 
the edge of the field. The aim of the Hunter- 
man, even in such a crisis, had been true; and 
the ball-bullet of the Hunterman had gone 
home. 

In a few moments. Amy had her child in her 
arms. And then something happened which 
pleased the planter even more than the wonder- 
ful shot Scipio had just made. "Give me yo' 
sickle, Amy," he said; "as long as we'se got a 
lir baby, I will never let you wuk no mo'." 

That eagle, the largest ever taken in the 
Santee country, now stuffed and mounted, is 
one of Ned Alston's treasured trophies. 
Though he cannot look at it without something 
akin to a shudder, yet it always vividly recalls 
one of the most thrilling moments of his life, 
when an innocent child was saved, without 



36 Old Plantation Days 

scath, from a terrible death. When he and 
Scipio look at the eagle together, they under- 
stand each other with a perfect affection. And 
the planter is wont to say : — 

"Scipio, to this day I don't know how you 
did it." 

And Scipio answers, as if the feat had been 
simple enough : — 

"How, Cap'n, ain't I is yo' Hunterman?" 



IV 

MY COLONEL 

HE lives on one of the great rice plan- 
tations that lie along the Santee 
River in the coast country of South 
Carolina. His home was the headquarters of 
the Swamp Fox, the dauntless Francis Marion. 
On his visit to the far South, after the Revolu- 
tion, the first gentleman in America, Gen. 
George Washington, breakfasted there. It has 
been the home of one of the most famous of 
Colonial Governors, and a second home to two 
signers of the Declaration. The noble old 
house itself looks like history. It has that 
alien yet generous majesty that is indefinably 
associated with the traditions of refinement. 
And because of this same spirit, which is in 
perfect harmony with the temper of its master, 
its hospitable doors are open wide to all com- 
ers. The old stage coach road from Charles- 
ton to Georgetown runs through the planta- 
tion; and even of late years, when travel on 
that route has been infrequent, my Colonel's 
old home has given welcome and shelter to 

37 



38 Old Plantation Days 

half a score of belated travelers at one time. 
It has been known to have gathered under its 
kindly roof during a single evening such a list 
as this: a horse doctor, a wandering spiritualist, 
a bishop, a whiskey drummer, a Presbyterian 
minister of the old school, an insurance agent, 
and a bibulous hunter. (No sequence is fol- 
lowed in this list save that which its very in- 
congruity suggests.) And all of these my 
Colonel delights to entertain. 

That he is six feet tall; that one shoulder 
droops because of two wounds, one from Mal- 
vern Hill and one from Gettysburg; that his 
head is regal in its carriage, with its thin aqui- 
line nose, its eyes the color of the blue morn- 
ing sky, its strong and tender mouth, half hid- 
den under the heavy white mustache; that the 
cast of his countenance is noble and proud — all 
these are in a way descriptive; but it is by sug- 
gestion that you come to know the real char- 
acter of the man. 

Every negro in the county knows and loves 
my Colonel. In his dealings with them he is 
not as other men; he is unique and picturesque 
to a high degree. At 8 o'clock in the morn- 
ing he will exhaust his nerves and his expletives 
on the old reprobate, Wash Green. (Once a 



My Colonel 39 

year, when he votes, he is known by his full 
name: George Washington Alexander Burn- 
sides Green.) He will stalk back and forth 
in a black rage, cursing the stupidity of the 
ragged negro who stands the fire well, and who 
keeps a cunning and humble silence. He will 
pause anon to pull a flower and to look over 
his beloved river and pine woods, while his eyes 
soften momentarily and his face is Illumined by 
tender memories. But his reverie Is as short 
as It Is romantic. With double vehemence he 
descends on the lazy miscreant; then finally he 
will stride Into the house, fumble in the harness- 
room over old buckles and broken chains, in 
the hall over tattered gloves and an outworn 
rifle, wondering the while, with growing con- 
trition, whether he has not been too hard on 
poor Wash. At length he will be drawn — 
and It is chivalric to consider this appeal in- 
voluntary — to the great mahogany sideboard 
In the dining-room. Here he takes what he 
calls a precaution. (Sometimes he styles It a 
mild Interjection.) This he accompanies with 
a silent toast: perchance to some visionary mem- 
ory, perchance to some fair lost face out of 
the haunted past that lives in his heart. Then 
he will stretch himself In the huge arm-chair, 
where the Swamp Fox once dozed, and soon 



40 Old Plantation Days 

will be deep in a cherished copy of Kipling — 
the only modern poet with whom he is familiar, 
although he used to be thoroughly versed in 
the works of Burns, Byron, and Tennyson. 
He reads Fuzzy Wuzzy, Gunga Din, and the 
Recessional. He knows this last by heart, and 
he cannot sit still under its powerful influence. 
So he walks out on the front piazza and down 
the steps, chanting the solemn and tremendous 
lines. There, under a big live oak, with its 
gray, sighing banners of moss, he comes 
abruptly upon Wash Green, who has been bid- 
ing his time. And now, indeed, the former 
things are passed away. For an hour they 
stand under the great oak and talk of the old 
times (being oblivious of the immediate and 
painful past). Then my Colonel, with a cer- 
tain air of mystery about him, goes back into 
the house. Presently he reappears with his 
arm full of plunder. On closer inspection this 
would be seen to consist of a coat, two shirts, an 
old pair of leggins, and a plug of tobacco. His 
exit from the doorway is made somewhat sur- 
reptitiously, for more practical members of the 
family are apt to keep a hard eye on his gener- 
osity. But he reaches Wash in safety, and 
bestows his gifts with the old love in his eyes. 



My Colonel 41 

"Were iz I gwine see my Boss again?" 
queries Wash as he turns to go. 

My Colonel's answer Is a singular one; with 
the face of one reading the commination serv- 
ice he holds his right arm horizontal, with the 
thumb pointing dismally downward. Wash 
comprehends, and is convulsed; and as he 
crosses the field he breaks into shouts of laugh- 
ter. Meanwhile, his master, humming hap- 
pily the chorus of a love song, popular long 
before the War, returns to the dining-room and 
takes a double precaution. 

As it is with Wash, so it is with all the ne- 
groes. My Colonel knows by name, character, 
parentage and proclivities every little picka- 
ninny on the nearby plantations. And as a rule 
they make splendid pigmy workmen. One of 
my Colonel's right-hand men is Three Cents, 
who is only eight years old. His mother called 
him that the day he was born, "Caze," she 
said, with more justice than mercy, "he made 
such a po' showin'." Another one of his di- 
minutive proteges is Monk. After this fash- 
ion he got his name: his mother, casting about 
vainly for something to call him, was at length 
persuaded to wait until some marked proclivity 
of her child should give her a clue as to an 



42 Old Plantation Days 

appropriate appellation. When he was three 
years old he began to practise prehensile traits 
with his toes; he picked switches with them, 
and in climbing used them with remarkable 
skill; whereupon he was promptly christened 
Monk. 

My Colonel is a lover of wild flowers; and 
the Santee woods are a paradise for them. On 
every hand in my Colonel's country Nature is 
riotous with her beauty and abundance. She 
is eager to retake what man has abandoned; 
and one by one the great plantations are faUing 
to decay and desolation. Well she knows how 
to clothe a ruin, how to veil a cemetery, how 
to drape a tomb. And in this sweet silent land 
her flowers make lovely what were otherwise 
touched with the sadness of spiritual loneliness 
and pain. Yet, of these subconscious elements, 
my Colonel is hardly aware. He rides into 
the bay-branch and breaks a great fragrant 
cluster of snowy blooms for his wife; he reins 
in his horse to watch the humming birds at 
work and play; and he drenches his soul in the 
beauty of the pines, of the flowering thickets, 
and of the tender radiance of the blossoming 
fields. Of the flowers in the garden, he loves 
the red rose best; for half a century ago his 



My Colonel 43 

mother used to wear one in her hair. He even 
went so far in sentiment once as to write a little 
verse about a red rose; but he never showed it 
to any one, having always a deep regard for 
the sanctity of personal emotions. 

My Colonel is the truest sportsman in the 
world. It is fifteen years since his youngest 
son, then but twelve years old, was so forget- 
ful of his breeding one day as to shoot a quail 
on the ground. And to this hour his father 
cannot think of the incident without a profound 
feeling that the family has suffered shame and 
disgrace. One summer a neighboring rice 
planter shot a doe that had been destroying his 
pea field. Two days later a negro who worked 
in the turpentine woods found the fawn starv- 
ing and brought it to my Colonel. The negro 
said that the old gentleman nearly cried when 
he saw the poor little creature; and he fed it 
himself with a bottle, covered it from the dew 
at night, and so saved its life. It finally grew 
into a three-prong buck that ate all the gerani- 
ums and kept the lawn shaggy; but my Colonel 
never regretted playing the Samaritan. 

Touching matters of a religious nature, he 
Is not self-conscious. He is reverent. He has 
nothing in common with those who say in their 



44 Old Plantation Days 

hearts that there is no God; for he has passed 
through many waters, and has found Him in 
their depths. He always says his prayers, 
though on cold nights he is apt to cut them 
short. His favorite prayer is that of the Pub- 
lican, and he often repeats it with comforting 
contrition. 

With very little persuasion he will tell you 
about the War — and, of course, there is but 
one War to him. Though he bears two 
wounds, he is free from any taint of bitterness 
of self-pity. "To the brave men on both 
sides," he will say, lifting his glass for a toast, 
*' to the brave men who fought and the braver 
women who waited." And to him Gettysburg 
will always be the greatest disaster in history. 

But best of all you will love my Colonel be- 
cause of his genuine heart. He will meet you 
in a dugout cypress canoe, ten miles from the 
plantation; and at midnight in a pouring rain 
will take you off the stranded tug-boat. Be- 
fore long he will tell you of the time when, 
running his Kentucky mare at full speed, he 
killed the two giant bucks as they jumped the 
road. It is his way of crowning you with his 
love and confidence. 

His eyes will fill when he tells you good-by. 
But as he stands waving to you from the deso- 



My Colonel 45 

late ricefield banks, you will catch the gleam 
of his eyes and the light of his smile. And you 
will remember him as a rare and true type of 
the Southern gentleman. 



H 



V 

THE WHITEHORN BUCK 

E Stood with his head above the gall- 
berry-bushes, his antlers gleaming 
softly in the white winter sunlight. 
Near-by a wild sow, of gaunt frame and thin 
gray bristles that made a horror of her spine, 
was searching for her breakfast in the black 
rooty mud of the pine-barren swamp. In the 
tangled thicket of myrtle, water-brier and 
sweet-bay, birds were hopping about and sing- 
ing. On all sides the great pine woods 
stretched away into a silence that held a deep 
rapture and a perfect peace. The sun, deli- 
ciously warm, filtered down through the fra- 
grant pine-crests, shone on the tall brown 
broom-grass and the dewy swamp, and rested 
tenderly on the pale blue flowers that starred 
the sheltered places. The sun shone on the 
whitehorn buck, and he stood still, drinking in 
the comfort and beauty of the scene. 

He carried the largest and handsomest horns 
of any deer in the Santee woods; their spread 

46 



The Whiiehorn Buck 47 

was thirty inches, and there were six tines on 
each branch. His eyes, like those of all white- 
tail deer, were singularly full, wild and liquid. 
His deep chest was covered with a rough 
growth of shaggy black hair that seemed to 
increase the appearance of his size and strength. 
His legs tapered until it became marvelous 
how they could support his weight. His whole 
body was shapely, muscular, beautiful; and his 
bearing was that of a monarch. 

Aside from his size, the one feature that 
would distinguish him from his fellows was the 
color of his antlers. They were almost pure 
white. And instead of giving him a freakish 
appearance, they seemed but in keeping with 
his carriage, and adorned his noble head. 

The normal color of the horns of the South- 
ern deer is a brownish amber, with a few white 
knobs here and there near the bases of the 
forks. Of the two varieties, the swamp- and 
the hill-deer, the swamp-buck's antlers are of a 
richer, darker brown, and their spread is more 
basket-shaped than those of his highland broth- 
ers. 

Now the whitehorn buck was a swamp-deer, 
and just how he came to have antlers whiter 
than any hill-deer's will perhaps never be 



48 Old Plantation Days 

known. But why they were white makes very 
little difference. The fact is that they were, 
and that he carried them. And for many years 
before this story begins he had become a living 
tradition on Santee, a breathing evidence of 
"the biggest old buck," the kind that always 
gets away. 

For he was known to all the hunters on that 
section of the South Carolina coast. His horns 
were "yarned" about and coveted. And as 
with each succeeding year they increased in 
size and symmetry, the sportsmen, poachers and 
market hunters all longed with increasing de- 
sire to drop their gun-sights on him. 

One February a negro turpentine hand 
picked up a branch of his antlers on the edge 
of the swamp and brought it to the Santee Club- 
house, where were gathered many hunters. 
Men who had killed moose in Maine, elk in 
Wyoming, and blacktail in the Dakotas, broke 
off in the midst of memorable yarns to gather 
in a circle, to handle the glorious antler, to ad- 
mire it, and to resolve silently but vehemently 
to take back North as trophies the new and 
full set of horns when another season should 
have developed them. 

But they had set their hearts on no ordinary 
game. They were no match for the white- 



Tlie Whitehorn Buck 49 

horn buck. Tliey might surround a branch, — 
as a small swamp or thicket is called, — and put 
the best pack of hounds in the country on his 
trail; but the wary old buck would always slip 
out. When startled from his haunts among 
the bay-bushes, he had a habit of throwing his 
head back on his broad shoulders and racing 
down the drive, with the pack in full cry after 
him; but when he had drawn the hunters to 
that end of the swamp, he would double, and 
before he could be cut off, would be "stretch- 
ing forward free and far" through the open 
woods. Then the only thing left for the cha- 
grined hunters to do would be to stop the dogs 
and put them in other swamps after inferior 
deer. 

Times past number the whitehorn buck 
eluded his pursuers. Nor was it because of 
his wildness. On the contrary, he was fre- 
quently seen. Negroes in the turpentine woods 
continually brought home stories of him. 

One had seen him peacefully feeding on the 
edge of a bay thicket. One had seen him lop- 
ing gracefully along under the pines. Again, 
his wide, deep track would be marked in the 
white sand of the road just outside the plan- 
tation gates. Up to the settlements he would 
roam in the night, browsing on the tender ferns 



50 Old Plantation Days 

and grasses and rubbing himself in the scrub- 
oak and sparkleberry copses. Many times he 
had been shot at, and if stories were to be 
believed, he had received mortal wounds on 
numerous occasions. But no hunter ever had 
a hair or a drop of blood from the monarch 
that bore the gleaming antlers to substantiate 
his story or prove the fatality of his aim. 

There were not a few sportsmen who would 
have gladly taken the trip from the North to 
Santee just to get a shot at the buck, but most 
of them realized that their desire was a vain 
thing. There were grizzled old hunters, na- 
tives of the deep swamp, who knew the lure 
and magic of the woods, who thought nothing 
of bringing home six wild turkeys and a black 
bear in a single day, desperate men, too, they 
were, who knew more than one use for the 
hunting-knife. But even they failed to get 
more than a sight or perhaps a hopeless shot 
at the whitehorn buck. 

There were pale business men from the city, 
come up to spend a week under the pines, on 
the ample, sweet bosom of nature, and they 
secretly determined to give the old hunters a 
surprise. They had often heard of the buck, 
and wished in a vaguely spectacular way to 
kill him, although they would probably have 



The WhiteJiorn Buck 51 

fainted away had he so much as given them a 
sight of himself. 

Then there were the wealthy, wholesome 
sportsmen of the Northern Club, robust, good- 
natured, and fair shots, who longed for a chance 
at the whitehorn buck. But one and all were 
foredoomed to disappointment. If hunted too 
frequently, he would disappear entirely for a 
month, and all the whooping of drivers and 
trailing of dogs through his favorite haunts 
and cover would fail to rouse him. He had 
gone no one knew where. 

So, year after year, the whitehorn buck was 
hunted, mortally wounded, storied about, and 
despaired over until, through the whole length 
and breadth of the Santee country he became 
a myth, a proverb, a spirit of elusion. And 
as he stood that winter morning in the gall- 
berry bushes on the edge of the swamp known 
as the Rattlesnake Drive, he was indeed a fit 
subject for imaginative stories. 

His bearing was superb. The wide, thin- 
edged nostrils, breathing in the damp and fra- 
grant morning air, the proud defiance of the 
regal head, the soft, liquid eyes, expressive of 
so much grace and pride, and the glistening 
sheen of his dun coat — all made him past de- 
scription, as his cunning and speed made him 



52 Old Plantation Days 

beyond the power of men to capture or to kill. 

Yet in that coast country there was one hun- 
ter whom the lordly whitehorn buck, would 
have to reckon with. He was the negro 
poacher, Scipio Lightning. 

Scipio was built for the woods. His phys- 
ical senses were developed like those of a wild 
animal. His eyesight was that of a harrier 
hawk; his sense of smell that of the ravens that 
sun themselves on the lone cypresses along the 
river; his hearing was as keen as that of a 
wary old gobbler. 

As the years passed, he had seen the woods 
and the fields over which he had once roamed 
and hunted at will taken up and posted by rich 
clubmen. Not that the posting made any par- 
ticular difference to Scipio; he still hunted about 
where he pleased, for because of his good na- 
ture he was on terms of smiling tolerance with 
all the watchmen of the game-preserves. And 
there w^s not a man on Santee who did not love 
him for his woodcraft, his strength and endur- 
ance, and the stories that he could tell of hunt- 
ing. From sand-chickens to swamp-bear, there 
was nothing about the Santee woods or river 
with which he was not thoroughly conversant. 

Yet for all his prowess as a hunter, and for 
all his matchless skill as a woodsman, Scipio 



The Whitehorn Buck 53 

was weak enough to be superstitious. He said 
once that he knew where a wahwoo-cat lived. 
Now a wahwoo-cat is a creature that is supposed 
to be invisible, and which whimpers and snarls 
at you out of the darkness. Scipio looked 
askance at rabbits, and no one ever found him 
eager to kill a mink. He had his superstitions 
about them all. And this weakness had a great 
deal to do with his relations with the whitehorn 
buck. 

He knew almost all that there was to be 
known about the whitehorn buck. He could 
show you the warm, sunshiny bed between the 
green tussocks of broom-grass where he had 
been dropped as a fawn. He knew in what 
clump of myrtle-bushes his mother used to leave 
him when she went far away through the lonely 
forest to feed. And as for his habits and his 
haunts, Scipio had them by heart. 

He knew that the Rattlesnake Drive was his 
home; but that when he was hunted hard he 
went back four or five miles in the woods, and 
there took refuge in a great swamp known as 
the Ocean, a vast, impenetrable morass, silent, 
dreary, haunted. 

Yet Scipio took little stock in all the glory 
and glamour that were gathered about the 
name and fame of the whitehorn buck. To the 



54 Old Plantation Days 

unromantic negro hunter he was only a wary 
old deer that no white man would be likely to 
kill. He knew that he himself could shoot 
him, for Scipio knew how. He would take no 
dog with him, no horn, no turmoil of gallop- 
ing horses and loud-mouthed men. He would 
take only his old musket, loaded with thirty 
buckshot. Such a charge would stop a dozen 
deer; but Scipio never made the mistake of 
undercharging his gun. 

So it came about that after the whitehorn 
buck had been made famous by the sportsmen 
who had missed him, and after rumors of the 
great price which would be paid for the horns 
had been in circulation for some time, Scipio 
decided to go after the monarch of the pines. 

Therefore it happened that on the very same 
day on which we saw the buck standing so 
proudly on the edge of the branch, Scipio be- 
gan his preparations. He gave his musket a 
thorough overhauling. In the mellow sunlight 
behind his cabin he cleaned it, washed it inside 
and out with warm water and soap, dried it, 
oiled it and loaded it. He primed the nipple 
carefully, and chose from the shiny box the 
brightest-looking percussion-cap that he could 
find. Then he lay down on a bench in the sun 
and slept till the late afternoon. 



The Whitehorn Buck 55 

The sun was setting in a fire of glory behind 
the tall, somber pines when Scipio left his cabin. 
The Rattlesnake Drive was only a mile away, 
and an easy walk. The negro's long strides 
would take him there in fifteen minutes, for 
what he would see on the way — and there 
would be much to see — would not deter him, 
now that he had a fixed purpose in mind. All 
the beauty of the sunset, of the twilight, of the 
soft coming of the dewy stars, of the mysterious 
rising of the ghostly mist — these meant noth- 
ing to the negro. A single purpose reigned In 
his heart: he was going to kill the whitehorn 
buck. 

As he walked swiftly down the narrow path 
that led through the high broom-grass under 
the pines, he saw the wild life of the night be- 
gin to come forth. Once a gray fox came 
trotting up the path towards him, and seeing 
him suddenly, almost turned a somersault, and 
dashed wildly away with his fluffy tail bobbing 
over the fallen timber. Once a great horned 
owl on velvet wings floated softly over him: 

"Not with a loudly whirring wing, 
But like a lady's sigh." 

Once, too, an old raccoon paced sedately down 



56 Old Plantation Days 

the length of a hurricane-thrown log without 
seeing the negro. 

Scipio soon came to the Rattlesnake Drive, 
and entered the thicket. The gallberry-bushes, 
cold with the dew, wet him up to his knees. 
He made his way carefully and knowingly to 
a little strip of high ground in the middle of 
the branch, a little white, sandy hillock that on 
the coast would be called a hummock, where 
stood a few giant pines and a little gathering 
of scrub-oaks. It was near the plantation end 
of the drive, and here, he knew, some time dur- 
ing the night, the whitehorn buck would surely 
come. It was a habit of his, and all his habits 
were known to Scipio. 

So Scipio waded through the swampy thicket, 
where the sweet-bay bushes brushed him fra- 
grantly, where the huge green water-briers, 
with their poisonous thorns, caught at him out 
of the shadows, until he came up on the warm, 
dry hillock. Here he found two pines fallen 
across each other. Gathering some of the soft 
pine needles, he heaped them in one of the 
corners against the logs, and sat down to wait. 

He knew that the buck, after feeding on 
the deep edges of the branch, would come up 
on the hill to walk about, to rub himself, and 



The Whitehorn Buck 57 

to dry his legs. Scipio knew that he would be 
able to hear him far down the swamp, and 
could see him, too, after moonrise, which was 
not now more than an hour away. 

The negro settled back for his long wait. 
Across his knees, and grasped by his gaunt and 
powerful hands, was his musket, the lock cov- 
ered with the edge of his coat to keep the cap 
and the powder perfectly dry. About him the 
great pine woods stretched away in unbroken 
beauty and stateliness. Mile after mile, like 
the solemn aisles of some fabulous cathedral, 
the dark shafts and luminous corridors with- 
drew into the night. And the music there was 
the rolling anthem of the pines that softly rose 
and triumphed and fell, like the waves of some 
mighty, dreaming ocean, to break at last in far, 
melodious foam. 

After a while the moon rose, and the woods 
for half a mile in each direction were as clear 
as day. Once a doe came feeding up to where 
Scipio sat; he could have touched her with his 
musket-barrel, but he did not stir. Once a 
gaunt old red fox trotted swiftly over the hill, 
urgently bent on business of his own, and Scipio 
let him pass unmolested. 

The radiant moon climbed higher, and the 
stars wheeled up and by. The infinity of the 



58 Old Plantation Days 

night grew vaster. Midnight, with its mys- 
tery, came and went. Scipio was growing chill. 
So far there had been no signs of the great 
personage whom he awaited. 

It would soon be too late for him to feed. 
Scipio grew anxious. But he need not have 
been, for when the negro entered one end of the 
drive, the buck had come in the other, and had 
been browsing up toward the sand-hill. 

When he was still two hundred yards away, 
Scipio heard a bay-bush crack. Ten minutes 
later he heard the petulant rap of horns against 
a young tupelo-tree. Five minutes more, and 
Scipio saw clearly, not more than fifty yards 
away, the gleam of snowy antlers. 

He ran no risk with a long shot, for after 
forty yards buckshot are very uncertain. He 
waited. The whitehorn buck came up to the 
edge of the sand-hill, quartering to the negro. 
Scipio, who at the first sound had rested his 
musket on the log before him, now tilted it 
gently until he saw the brass sight shine against 
the white patch behind the buck's fore leg. 
The gun tightened against his shoulder; he 
steadied it with all the strength of his powerful 
arms; he pressed the trigger! 

"Ti-a-a-rr!" echoed the cap, derisively, and 
the buck, seeming to jump seven ways at once, 



The Whitehorn Buck 59 

and fifteen feet in each direction, straightened 
out at a tremendous speed down the branch. 
The powder had slipped down in the nipple, 
the cap had popped, and the whitehorn buck 
was getting away! 

Yet Scipio held his sight on him, hoping that 
the charge might still ignite. But all in vain. 
The great buck thundered on down the edge of 
the drive, and was soon lost to sight among 
the glimmering pines. Scipio lowered his mus- 
ket in disgust. Yet there was more than dis- 
appointment and chagrin on his face ; there was 
superstition and downright fear. He looked 
furtively about him, and then struck off in a 
fox-trot toward home. Nor did he slacken his 
pace until he was in sight of his lonely little 
cabin that slept in the peaceful moonlight. 

If one might read Scipio's heart, one would 
find that the negro believes that he was trying 
to shoot at a spirit, or that some strange power 
was working against him. Never before and 
never since that night can he remember his mus- 
ket's failing him. So he goes no more to stalk 
the whitehorn buck. And that old monarch 
who bears the glorious antlers should be thank- 
ful in the thought that the best hunter in that 
country is superstitious. 



VI 

O RINGING bells! 

WHEN Dave Mordaunt rose to the 
surface of those raving waters, in- 
stead of striking out for the sandy 
mound that jutted oddly out of the murky 
tumult of waves, he paused to look about him. 

"Here, Bells!" he called. Though his eyes 
were anxious his voice was not excited. It was 
clear and well pitched. 

For reply the rain slashed him savagely in 
the face, and the wind shrilled derisively in his 
ears. But his determination was resolute. 
He would not start for safety without Bells. 
Once more, treading the storm water, he called 
with shrewd clearness across the waves. Then 
a tousled white form appeared, baffled by the 
roaring elements. It struggled incontinently. 
But when she heard Dave's voice, the setter 
turned to him as the trembling needle sets 
steady and true toward the north. There 
came a happy yelp from the swimming dog. 
Ringing Bells was calling to her master. 

"Come on, dog," shouted Dave. "It's 

60 



O Ringing Bells! 61 

pretty near time we were going," he added 
grimly. 

Another glad yelp answered this; and In a 
moment the delicately molded head was swim- 
ming beside the grizzled face of her owner. 
Bells did not know where they were going. 
It was enough that she was with Dave, and 
that he spoke to her kindly though command- 
Ingly. And when, ten minutes later, the two 
came ashore on the only refuge on the storm- 
swept delta, the little English setter appeared 
ready for further adventures if Dave would 
but say the word. And Dave knew that there 
would be no trouble on that score; if Bells 
wished adventures, they were sure to be throng- 
ing in soon. As he sat down on the packed 
wet sand with his back to the tearing wind, he 
called her to him. 

"Bells," he said, as she laid her head be- 
tween his knees and looked up at him with 
reverent and adoring eyes, " do you know, 
girl, what's done gone and happened to us? 
We never had no business a-leavin' home when 
we saw them clouds making up in the north- 
east. Now we have done capsized, and that 
case of duckshot shells has done helped to sink 
our canoe. My gun's down there under that 
water somewheres. We got to this place all 



62 Old Plantation Days 

right; but how long the wind and tide are go- 
ing to let us stay here is more than I know. 
We're a far ways from any other high land, 
and that I'm tellin' you." 

The shrieking wind continued to drive in 
across the dim expanse of delta marsh, now al- 
most topped by the vast tide that, sweeping in 
from the near-by ocean, was fast flooding the 
low-lying country adjacent to the river's mouth. 
The wind was full of gusty flaws that spat sharp 
raindrops keenly. Over Cedar Island, which 
stood as a dark coastal barrier between the 
waste delta and the sea, a strange yellowish 
light brooded in the dreadful heart of the on- 
rushing storm. A West Indian cyclone was 
coming up the Carolina coast in all its original 
and elemental fury and it boded frightful men- 
ace to all things in its path. 

It lacked two hours to sundown; but a hurri- 
cane such as this one can merge day and night 
into swift blackness. To east and west of the 
wide delta, the mainland, where stood stately 
forests of pine, was first misted, then dimmed, 
then darkened, and at last extinguished. The 
wild tide, the dreadful cloud, the insane wind 
had their way with the delta. And the bleak 
rain connived to hide the desolation wrought. 
But as yet the mound on which the man and his 



O Rwging Bells! 63 

dog had taken refuge remained above the wa- 
ters. 

This strange tiny island was a place little 
known even to the inhabitants of the country 
bordering on the delta. But Dave Mordaunt, 
having for a lifetime ranged those lonely re- 
gions of the river, knew it; and when the storm 
had cut him off from the mainland, he had 
straightway headed his canoe for the mound. 
Dave not only knew of the existence of it; he 
knew its origin as well. A half century before, 
when rice growing had been a flourishing indus- 
try of the delta country, there had existed the 
same menace from cyclones; and this great 
mound of earth had been erected near the cen- 
ter of the delta by a league of planters. The 
long years of erosion had worn it down to only 
a fraction of its original height; but it still re- 
mained the highest point in all that vast marshy 
region. When Dave Mordaunt and his dog 
reached it in this storm it was still about three 
feet above the water line, and the area of the 
part as yet uncovered was nearly half an acre. 

"I'm glad to get on this place," said Dave, 
stroking thoughtfully the head of Bells, "but 
I'll be durn glad to get off here, too. She 
shouldn't rise no more than another foot; but," 
he added with grave uncertainty, "that's the 



64 Old Plantation Days 

yallerest cloud over Cedar Island that ever I 
seen." 

It was not the first time he had lost his boat 
and his gun. But somehow this experience was 
going to be different from all the others. He 
felt sure of it. 

"This thing," he mused sternly, "is gwine to 
be a hurricane. I smell it." 

But as long as he continued to stroke the 
white setter's head, a legion of hurricanes could 
not perturb her. 

Dave Mordaunt could never have been called 
an excitable man. He had sometimes found 
inaction better than action. Wherefore it was 
his nature thus to sit on the sodden mound of 
sand, barely rising above a waste of tossing 
waters, calmly stroking the head of his beloved 
dog while the rain drove like sharp shrapnel 
against his broad back and the fiendish wind 
whipped him cruelly. 

Having fought wind and weather for forty 
years, Dave knew the danger of his position; 
# but he also had learned what is the graduating 
lesson in common sense — not to worry. He 
realized that he could hardly hope for some one 
to save him. The only escape lay less in the 
man's exertions than in an abating of the fury 
of the storm. And for this letting up of the 



O Ringing Bells! 65 

hurricane, Dave Mordaunt, making Ringing 
Bells crouch between his knees for shelter, 
waited with a grim patience. 

But that waiting was vain. What brought 
Dave to a realization of this was a certain wild 
and eerie sight, more like a vision than a view 
of real things, that, during a strange lull in the 
rain, he saw to the southward. A sharp veer- 
ing away of the cyclone between his refuge and 
Cedar Island had caused a dark line of trees 
to reappear on the seaward horizon — tall war- 
riors they were, in black armor and in single 
file marching riverward. The man's eyes were 
now upon them, for they seemed like strong 
friends, bringing to him reassurance. But even 
as Dave looked, the tall pines that had tow- 
ered against the storms of a century, and that 
now seemed symbolic of a mastering strength, 
suddenly went down like a whisper. Through 
the seaward gap thus vividly made Dave could 
see the utter wildness of the ocean. All that 
savage and conquering wildness was moving 
resistlessly northward across the delta toward 
Dave's precarious place of refuge. 

Already the man noted with a hardening 
light in his eyes that the sandy mound, which 
had been three feet out of water on his arrival, 
was now scarce one foot up. Though he had 



66 Old riantation Bays 

sat down with Bells on the highest point of the 
hillock, the waters were now upon them. Dave 
had to draw in his feet. The feathered tail 
of Ringing Bells was awash. Strangely, and it 
seemed to the doomed man very suddenly, he 
was left in a wilderness of waters. The pines 
of Cedar Islands, drifting logs, floating sedge, 
had all vanished. 

Standing in a crouched and braced position 
with his back to the howling storm, and with 
Bells standing with her forefeet on his shoul- 
ders and her head within the shelter of his 
breast, he made up his mind what to do. 

"Bells," he said, "you have always been a 
good dog, and I've tried to be a good master 
to you, using you right. You have always 
minded me, and you will mind me now, I know. 
Now, listen, girl. Across the river yonder is 
home. You can make it. It's hard going, but 
you can do it. If you stay here, you sure will 
have to take drownin'. There ain't no use of 
your bein' drowned. Bells. I reckon I'll have 
to stay here and take what is comin' to me; but 
when I say, 'Go home !' I want you to go and 
go straight. . . . Understand me, little girl?" 

More from the tone of the soft command- 
ing voice than from the bitter driving of the 
wind and rain that whipped her flanks, Ringing 



O Ringing Bells! 67 

Bells began to shiver. She always knew when 
Dave wanted her to carry out some plan of his. 
Dave Mordaunt lifted her weight from his 
breast and crouched low with her on the crest 
of the mound. 

"Yonder's home," he said, pointing away to 
the westward. "Go, Bells I Go home, girl!" 

The snowy little setter gave a yelp of qn- 
derstanding. A moment more and she had en- 
tered the wild waters. She knew the direction. 
She knew what Dave had told her to do; and 
since the time when she had played as a little, 
white, innocent puppy at his feet, there in the 
humble home under the live oaks overlooking 
the river, she had learned implicitly to trust 
and to obey the quiet hunter of the delta. He 
had never fooled her. He had taught her all 
she knew; and the greatest thing she had 
learned was obedience. 

The man crouched on his desolate refuge, 
trying to follow with his weary eyes the swim- 
ming white form. But she had gotten away 
quickly; and now the scudding of the rain and 
the wild spume that was lashed up by the 
wind hid that desperate stretch of waters. 
Once, indeed, far off he thought he saw a white 
form suddenly glimmer and flash. But it might 
have been a breaking wave. Dave knew, how- 



68 Old Plantation Days 

ever, that Bells would reach home. For one 
thing, her long and arduous training as a duck- 
ing dog had made her an excellent, hardy swim- 
mer; for another, he had told her to go. And 
despite the apparent hopelessness of his own 
position, Dave Mordaunt had a gladness warm- 
ing his heart. At least. Bells would be safe. 

Though the larger waves were now break- 
ing freely over the mound, the marooned man 
gave small heed to them. He was not afraid. 
The time had not come for him to think of 
himself; he was too busily thinking of little 
Ringing Bells and her valiant obedience. 

It was in no foolish hope that her going 
might help him, that he had sent her home; 
for Dave Mordaunt was a lonely man, having 
neither wife nor parents, neither son nor daugh- 
ter. His only relative was his brother Ben, 
a man much like him, who lived some two miles 
down the river from Dave's place. 

"She'll get home," the man kept saying, "but 
I want her to get nigh there before I start; 
for if she knows I'm comin', she'll turn back. 
It looks mightily like drownin' for me; but 
leastways I can drown a little nearer home 
than this, and I can go down fightin'. I think 
the water will treat me better than this here 
crazy wind. When she ketches me to knees, 



O Ringing Bells! 69 

I'll pull out; and though mayhap I'll founder 
right off there where my boat went down, it 
will not be just like standin' still and lettin' the 
tide come in and take me. It's a man's busi- 
ness, I reckon, to fight till he's done for. Any- 
way, the little one, she's safe. . . . And I'm 
coming after you, Bells." 

It was not now a question of Dave's taking 
the water, for the water took him. Already 
the waves were breaking about his waist, and 
vehement currents were tugging at his knees, 
when he stepped down into the surging water. 

There was now no gleam in the northern 
sky; and the only light was the disastrous and 
lurid glow that the hurricane cast. But this 
was as inconstant as the raving wind itself; 
for when Dave began to swim, it actually af- 
forded him a glimpse of the farther shore; yet 
ere he had gone a rod a sudden darkness closed 
down upon the scene. He had a sense, though 
he had no sight, of the distant shore. 

The lone swimmer, laboring on, rolled by the 
hurrying waves, smitten sharply by wind and 
driven spume, had one thought that glowed in 
his heart: he knew that Ringing Bells would 
have reached home by now. Even as he 
blindly swam he seemed to see the white setter 
making the shore, shaking her draggled coat 



70 Old Plnrifation Days 

in the shelter of one of the huge live oaks, and 
then crawling into the snug bed of straw that 
her master had made for her under the cabin's 
high porch. Then another thought came to 
Dave. 

What would become of Bells when he did 
not come ashore? His mind flashed to a cabin 
like his own down the river — his brother Ben's. 

"He'll take her," he thought; "and he'll be 
good to her, though nobody will ever under- 
stand her same as I do. . . . He'll keep her 
to 'member me by." 

Such were the swimmer's thoughts. He was 
a strong swimmer, to whom the breadth of the 
river would ordinarily have meant nothing. 
But now his attempt was to cross both it and 
the delta, and to do it in a storm. Not for a 
moment did he let himself think that the thing 
could not be done; but Dave Mordaunt was 
sane enough to realize, even in the unabating 
excitement of such an experience, that the odds 
were vastly against him. Yet that was the 
very reason he hardened his heart to do the 
desperate thing that had been forced upon him 
by the coming of the hurricane. He swam 
steadily with all his skill and with not more 
strength than he needed to exert; but what he 
needed was almost all he had. 



O Ringing Bells! 71 

There was no way for him to know of the 
progress he was making. He feared, indeed, 
that he had lost his sense of direction. The 
dim bulk of the sea islands, the blur to west- 
ward that had marked the river bank, the faint 
light in the sky over the delta to the north — 
all these were now shut out. But despite the 
fact that, for all he knew, he might be headed 
back for the mound, or northward up the river, 
or seaward under a blinding veer of the wind, 
Dave kept steadily on. . . . But not even a 
strong man can perform the impossible. . . . 
It was a half hour after he had left the inun- 
dated hillock that the swimmer felt himself 
going. 

Though realizing the desperate nature of the 
battle he was waging, Dave Mordaunt would 
not admit to himself that he was drowning. 

"Not yet!" he gasped, as, out of the black 
depths of the waters into which he had sunk, 
he rose to their stormy surface. 

"Sink! Sin-k-k-k-k!" sobbed a great white 
wave, submerging him. 

"Now! Now!" shrilled the mad wind in 
his ears as he went down. 

"Not yet," muttered Dave. But his heart 
was sick, and his voice was no more than a wet 
"roan. 



72 Old Plantation Days 

"Soon ! Soon I" shouted the crazy wind ex- 
ultantly. And Dave knew that It was so. His 
thoughts went again to his dog. 

"Bells," he gasped— "little Bells— Ben, he'll 
care for you." 

The man's gnarled brown arms that had 
been wide for swimming, now swept convul- 
sively together on the surface. The rude 
fingers met in a handclasp. Dave Mordaunt 
gave his soul over to God. 

"For the sea is His," his heart said, "and 
He made it." 

A moment thus he lay strangely on the sur- 
face, with waves rocking him not ungently; but 
then their forward rolling divulged his form 
no more. Dave had gone down; but his fight 
had been a brave one. 

But the drowning man, far under the deep 
river's tide, felt a last hot rebellion against his 
fate. With terrible strength he beat his way 
upward out of the murk. He came to the 
surface all but unconscious. 

Dave's unutterably weary eyes, heavy with 
the importunate summons of death's long sleep, 
opened dimly to the storm. But they opened 
wider as a strange object bulked in the gray- 
ness. It was portentous and black. There 
was something white on it. The man was not 



O Ringing Bells! 73 

without superstition. He believed this to be 
the end. 

Suddenly a sharp glad bark thrilled him, 
shocking him out of oblivion. Then a snowy 
form leaped from the black hulk. It swam 
toward Dave. Swiftly it came alongside, and 
over Its warm strength the man dragged a dead 
arm. 

" O God!" he gasped, "you done sent Bells 
for me!" 

An hour later he was at home, lying on a 
rude couch before a crackling fire. On one 
side sat his brother Ben; and on the other, with 
her eyes never taken from her master's face, 
crouched Ringing Bells. Ben, a woodsman, 
bronzed until he was almost black, was a man 
of few words; but he could make his meaning 
clear enough. 

"In the middle of the storm," he was saying 
to his brother, "Bells, she come to my house. 
And she made it plain that I must come to the 
river. Something was wrong, I knew. I come 
by here through the rain; and not finding you, 
I says to myself, 'More than likely he's over 
on yon mound, but he can't stay there.' By 
that time Bells, she was down at the river, 
barking. Three times she swam off, but I got 
her back. Then I took the 12-foot oars and 



74 Old Plantation Days 

the big sturgeon boat — 'tain't another craft 
could haye come across that river — and we 
found you. Bells, she saw you afore I did," 
he added. 

In the silence that followed, the snowy setter 
crept closer to the couch. Her eyes of utter 
faithfulness sought Dave's face. Dave's eyes 
were closed; but by instinct his hand moved 
toward her, searching. Ben understood his 
brother; for he took Dave's hand gently and 
laid it on the head of Ringing Bells. 



VII 

ANY one's turkey 

THE turkey-blind was a simple affair, 
made of green boughs leaning against 
two pines which stood almost together. 
Beyond the blind was a thin trail of peas and 
rice tailings on a strip of open ground, skilfully 
sprinkled with pine trash. All around the 
blind was a knee-high growth of dark-green 
gallberry bushes; then came the sweet myrtles 
with their cool and fragrant foliage; then the 
deep swamp where the turkeys roosted, with 
its tall gum trees, its shadowy tupelos, its tow- 
ering elms, and its whispering poplars; beyond 
the swamp lay the wide, mysterious pinewoods, 
lonely, baffling. This spot was on Colonel 
Jocelyn's plantation, not far from the Great 
House and almost too near the negro cabins. 
But the Colonel's code of honor was rigid, 
even to the point that he stooped not to sus- 
pecting even the lowest of his fellow creatures. 
And he was more than this. He carried his 
trust to the point of temptation. He proved 
this when he got Scipio to build the turkey- 

76 



76 Old Plantation Days 

blind for him, in spite of the fact that rumors 
with regard to Scipio's persistent poaching and 
unrehabiHty had come to his ears. Colonel 
Jocelyn did not believe it. He had known 
Scipio too long; there was not a better negro on 
his plantation or any other. The Colonel ex- 
pressed this judgment with some explosive em- 
phasis to his frail, quiet-eyed little wife; and 
so, when on his way home from a deer hunt, 
he saw the turkeys go to roost one twilight, 
he sent for Scipio the next day and told him 
with great secrecy, in a sportsman's whisper, 
of the turkeys. Insamuch as Scipio had found 
the nest in the summer, he had every turkey in 
the brood marked from the time when they 
came out of the speckled eggs; and inasmuch 
as, out of the twenty, he had already killed and 
sold seven, it required not a little diplomacy 
to express surprise at their discovery. Yet 
Scipio's praise and admiration of the Colonel's 
acuteness was in no wise failing. He listened 
with great attentiveness, and gravely assented 
to the Colonel's plan. Yes, he would build it 
right away; and he would get the rice tailings 
from the barnyard that very morning; oh, yes, 
he knew the very spot where his boss wanted 
the blind put. Did he think the turkeys would 
take the feed? There was no doubt of it. 



Any One's Turkey 77 

Had Scipio seen them before? Not Scip'io; 
he had not seen a wild turkey on the plantation 
for years; it was a miracle to him how his boss 
was so keen as to mark them down; his boss 
seemed a younger and a better woodsman every 
day. And, yes, Scipio would surely let him 
know the first time the turkeys took the feed. 

After this conversation the Colonel walked 
briskly into the house, kissed his little wife affec- 
tionately, whistled a catch of an old love song, 
popular long before the War, and then went 
out to see the rice-thrashing in the barnyard. 
And wherever he went. Secret was written on 
every feature and found expression in every 
movement. 

Meanwhile Scipio had, in all faith, built and 
baited the blind. He knew very well that the 
Colonel would forget all about it; that all his 
enthusiasm and spirit were as transient as a 
flash of sunlight through some dark door; that 
the turkeys were his if he could but keep up his 
cunning and his courage. 

The very next day after the blind had been 
completed, Wash Green, returning from an in- 
timate and friendly visit to some one else's po- 
tato bank on the neighboring plantation, and 
having in his possession that which was not 
intended for public inspection, took a short cut 



78 Old Plantation Days 

through the swamp and ahnost walked into the 
turkey-blind. He saw that it was freshly made 
and that no hogs had touched the bait; he no- 
ticed its location and guessed its purpose with 
self-applauding cunning. When he got home 
he brought his old smooth-bore musket down 
from the loft over his parlor and, drawing the 
buckshot, poured half a handful of No. 3's 
into the barrel and wadded it down with some 
black moss. Now, he thought, he would steal 
a march on that sly Scipio who had, time and 
again, thwarted him, and made him a subject 
of jest and laughter. Now if he. Wash Green, 
could slip into that turkey-blind early the next 
morning and bring home a fine gobbler, the 
chagrin of Scipio, who was always so proud 
about his hunting, would be acute and his de- 
feat most mortifying. Wash always relished 
his victories before they came; he was wise in 
this where It was a question of getting the bet- 
ter of Scipio, for such victories never actually 
arrived. 

And Scipio, while down in his heart he hated 
to deceive the Colonel, who had always been 
so fair and just to him, was fully prepared to 
make the blind a success. He, too, loaded his 
musket with big buckshot, and went to bed with 
his mind on the "moondown" as the time for 



Amj One's Turkey 79 

him to be stirring. And when the moon, al- 
most full — which all night long had sailed in 
lonely splendor over the purple pine woods, 
flooding the plantation fields and the great 
river, which moved slowly seaward, with her 
mysterious light — began to sink on the bosom 
of the pine forest, Scipio awoke and, stretching 
his arms, shuffled to the door. Yes, it was 
time for him to start. At "day-clean" turkeys 
flew down. He would be on hand if they came 
to the blind, but he hardly thought they would 
take the feed the first morning. 

All night Scipio had been dozing in front of 
the fire with his clothes on ; so, by merely reach- 
ing for his cap and musket he was ready to 
start. When he got outside of the cabin the 
morning air was chill and he buttoned his coat 
more closely about him. In doing so he felt 
in the pocket for his box of percussion caps. 
They were not there. He felt himself with 
growing and anxious excitement, but the caps 
were not to be found. Scipio swore softly. 
There was no use for him to go without the 
caps. He leaned his musket against the pal- 
ings of his little garden and went back into the 
cabin. He must have been gone twenty min- 
utes, and when he reappeared he had the caps 
but had lost his temper. He plunged out of 



80 Old Pla7itation Days 

the door, grasped his musket and disappeared 
in a fox-trot down the narrow path which led 
through the broom grass from his cabin to the 
pine woods. But the day had already come; 
in the east the pale colors were brightening and 
the sky overhead had its day-blue. The blind 
was half a mile away, and he would be for- 
tunate if he got there before the turkeys flew 
down. 

His gait took him through the woods swiftly. 
He was unconscious of their cool and dewy 
sweetness, their delicious freshness, their serene 
beauty and tranquillity; he knew only that be- 
fore him, beyond a certain blind, a dozen wild 
turkeys might be at their breakfast, and that 
he might be too late to surprise them. As he 
got near the place, his anger was replaced by 
caution; his vehement pace slackened, and he 
bent low as he crept behind the blind. He 
slunk from pine to pine, keeping his sight on 
the clump of green bushes before him; as he 
came nearer and nearer he disappeared almost 
entirely in the gallberry bushes. And then, 
when he was thirty feet away, he was transfixed 
by something which caught his eye suddenly. 
He saw a movement in the blind before him. 
Scipio fell flat in the bushes, bewildered and 
amazed. Could it be Colonel Jocelyn? If 



Any Okie's Turkey 81 

so, he was keener than Scipio had imagined. If 
it was the Colonel, the presence of Scipio's 
musket would be embarrassing. Slowly, and 
with infinite caution, Scipio, without bending 
his knees, raised himself on his hands and 
peered over the bushes. He could see noth- 
ing. A loose branch had fallen over the en- 
trance of the blind and hidden its occupant. 
Even while Scipio peered there came a mighty 
roar from the blind, and every aperture seemed 
to belch forth smoke. Then Scipio sprang up 
and, flattening himself behind a big pine, peered 
forth. What he saw filled him with surprise, 
anger, and the spirit of vengeance. He saw 
Wash Green plunge out of the blind, hat in 
hand, and rush out on the open space where 
the bait lay. He saw him run down toward 
the edge of the swamp, stoop down, and rise 
with a magnificent bronze gobbler held in his 
hand. Scipio gulped hard, and his thoughts 
• crowded fast. His mind was already made up 
when Wash, twenty yards away, turned his 
back and again looked toward the swamp. He 
had swung the gobbler over his shoulder and 
had replaced his old, creased black-felt hat 
jauntily on the side of his head. And so he 
stood for a moment, a picture of satisfaction 
and of debonair content. 



82 Old Plmitation Days 

Scipio had sometimes had occasion to call to 
him many wild animals which had thereby fallen 
before his musket. He knew, too, how to imi- 
tate the voices of men. With sudden decision 
he jerked his musket to his shoulder: 

"Ha, nigger!" cried Colonel Jocelyn's irate 
voice, and as it reached the ears of Wash, 
Scipio's musket roared forth. Wash's black- 
felt hat flew off and lodged in a myrtle bush; 
Wash himself sprang into the air as if prepara- 
tory to aerial flight; the gobbler fell to the 
earth, and the terrified negro crashed through 
the bushes, screaming and rubbing his head with 
both hands. He did not look back, but ran 
on and on, screaming louder and louder as he 
found the shot had not hurt him. And so he 
disappeared. 

After a few minutes Scipio came out from 
the shelter of his pine. He fixed up the blind 
and then walked down to the gobbler and the 
felt hat. He took the latter out of the bush 
and grinned as he looked at it. There were 
five tiny holes through the top of it, front and 
back. He stuffed it into his pocket, picked up 
the gobbler and, stopping at the blind to get 
Wash's musket, was soon on the path home- 
ward. 

It was some time before Wash returned 



'Any One's Turkey 83 

home, and as Sciplo's cabin was near his, 
Scipio sat on his steps and watched for the re- 
turn of the wanderer. They were far enough 
apart to make it safe for Scipio to grin, as he 
had ample reason to when he saw the dejected 
form of Wash Green emerge from the pines 
and slink along to his cabin. The next morn- 
ing Scipio's rival found his musket with his cap 
on the end of it leaning up against his door. 
And to this day he has not had the courage to 
thank Colonel Jocelyn for returning them. 



VIII 

THE GOLDEN ROBBER 

WITH that directness of purpose 
characteristic of the flight of his 
kind, the great golden eagle beat 
his way powerfully up the waste delta of the 
Santee. It was in June; and the wild fowl 
that had wintered along the Southern coast had 
long since departed, although here and there 
in the marshes that fringed the wide yellow 
river there still lurked crippled ducks that 
would have to spend the summer in the South. 
As the lordly eagle swept onward, over sen- 
tinel cypresses and silent lagoons, over cane- 
brakes and fields of wild wampee, he was a 
veritable king of the air, and he surveyed with 
the eye of a monarch the rich rice-fields and 
the dreamy plantations beneath him. But from 
the mouth of the river upward his quest had 
brought him nothing; so he turned from the 
delta to the vast tracts of pine, at that season 
of the year the abode of more forms of life 
legitimately the eagle's prey than the delta. 

Crossing the Santee opposite Mazyck's Cut, 

84 



The ^Golden Robber 85 

and driving on over Hampton Place, he passed 
high above the great white house in its grove 
of live-oaks, and over the group of negro cab- 
ins beyond the corn-fields. Lower over the 
pines he swept, while his round, unlidded eyes 
searched the thickets, the shimmering green 
savannas, and the sunny spaces of broom-sedge 
beneath him. Swerving suddenly, he checked 
himself in his great flight, circled twice as 
swiftly as a simitar cuts the air, and dropped 
like a plummet through the pines. 

Beneath the terrible falling body of this 
golden robber, a tiny fawn drowsing between 
matted tufts of broom-sedge, lay, unaware of 
the enemy descending upon it. With its deli- 
cate coat glistening in the sun, its white star 
spots softly aglow, and its diminutive, deli- 
cately modeled hoofs, the fawn was an object of 
beauty. It seemed strange that so frail and 
delicate a creature should be lying there alone 
in the wild pine forest. And it was not really 
alone; for at the edge of the near-by myrtle 
thicket the mother, a slim young doe, was feed- 
ing, alert to every sound or shadow that broke 
the stillness of the great woods or that dark- 
ened the sky above her. 

She saw the eagle when the eagle spied her 
fawn, and the effort of each to reach the little 



86 Old Plantation Days 

creature first became a mad rush. And be- 
cause the huge bird saw the doe coming to 
the protection of her baby, and because the 
fawn itself, becoming aware of the black 
shadow above it, struggled unsteadily to its 
feet, swaying on its delicate legs, the eagle 
missed the goal of his first savage rush. His 
wide wings swept the fawn, but his curved tal- 
ons closed on air; and as he beat his way up 
ponderously, the mother, bounding over the 
grass, reached the fawn, nuzzled it until it 
stood under her; then, palpitating but defiant, 
she turned to face the great eagle circling above 
her, and awaiting a favorable chance for an- 
other attack. 

There was silence in the solitary woods — 
the deep silence of a summer mid-afternoon. 
The squirrels were all drowsing in their holes; 
the lurking coveys of bob-white were dusting 
themselves on the sandy hillocks where black- 
jack grew; in the thickets the towhees and 
brown thrashers for once were not rustling the 
dry leaves; even the assiduous nuthatches had 
ceased their acrobatic performances in the pines, 
and here and there peered plaintively over the 
edges of the stout limbs on which they were 
crouched. Brightly the sun gleamed on the 
hushed thickets, the motionless pines, the sleep- 




'BUT THE GOLDEN EAGLE WAS NOT TO P.K BAFFLED BY A 
YOUNG DOE'S DEFL\NCE"— Pa(/e S; 



The Golden Robber 87 

ing glades; and In the brightness and silence 
this tragedy of the wild was going forward; 
the primeval savage hunger of the eagle pitted 
against the wonderful love of the mother doe. 

Although this was the doe's first fawn, she 
seemed to understand fully the nature of Its 
peril; but the fawn apparently considered it 
some strange new game that Its mother had 
arranged for Its benefit. Every few seconds 
it would frisk its little fluffy tail, take pert 
and jerky steps here and there, and peer out 
from its shelter with mischief gleaming In its 
great brown eyes. But the mother never 
doubted the reality of the danger from the 
circling bird above her; she never relaxed her 
vigilance. Knowing that in a constant watch- 
fulness lay the only chance of safety for her 
fawn, her watch became a feverish Insistence of 
alertness. 

But the golden eagle was not to be baffled 
by a young doe's defiance. He circled more 
swiftly, and drew nearer; he whirled above 
her head with marvelous agility for so great a 
body, swerved suddenly, and dashed his grip- 
ping talons toward the playful fawn. The 
mother reared and struck out fiercely with her 
hoofs. The fawn, whose tender flank had been 
gashed by one of the eagle's long curved talons, 



88 Old Plantation Days 

was frightened and cowering now. The eagle 
swept over the back of the doe, and alighted 
on a pine log lying near. In another moment 
he rose oddly on curved wings and threw him- 
self at the bewildered mother. 

There was a frantic struggle, in which the 
bleating of the fawn sounded piteously; there 
was the rasp of hoofs against tough feathers, 
and the panting of the doe. And when at last 
she did beat off the winged robber, her tongue 
was out, her flanks heaved, and from her glossy 
sides the blood steadily dripped until the grass 
beneath her, and the little fawn, now huddled 
up in terror, were flecked with red. 

The eagle had not risen from the ground, 
but was perched grimly on a heavy tussock of 
broom-sedge, whence he watched with cold eyes 
the distress of his victims. 

And now in the forest sounds began to awake. 
A soft wind breathed through the pines, and 
they murmured and waved; a towhee whistled 
in the myrtle thicket; a bob-white, standing on 
the burned base of an old pine stump, gave his 
mellow, ringing call; and somewhere far off 
a crow was cawing in his careless fashion. The 
nuthatches, too, like traveling mountebanks, 
resumed their topsy-turvy performances. 

But the sounds were quite as unavailing as 



The Golden Robber 89 

the silence had been to end happily the grim 
siege that had set in. One more attack like 
the former might so weaken and bewilder the 
doe that she could no longer defend her darling 
from the powerful eagle. She dared not lead 
her fawn to the friendly shelter of the thicket; 
for the grass tussocks were difficult to cross, 
the little fawn unsteady on its legs, and the 
exposure of even a moment might be fatal. It 
was wonderful that the doe knew that she 
must stay where she was and finish the fight 
where she had begun it. Nor had she been so 
far entirely worsted, for the ground at her feet 
was strewn with feathers that her sharp hoofs 
had torn from the eagle in her frantic efforts 
to keep him away from her precious little one. 
There were flecks of blood also on her black 
hoofs. 

But her stand had not dismayed the king of 
the air. Even now he gripped the tussock 
more firmly, leaned over calmly and wiped his 
shining beak on the grass; then, crouching with 
lowered head and lifted wings, he launched 
himself savagely at the head of the doe. 

He cleared her forefeet as she beat out at 
him, and sank his long talons in her neck, 
only to release them and hurl himself over her 
back and down her side, beneath which the 



90 Old Plantation Days 

fawn, somehow reconciled to the extraordinary 
events, but looking up now and then with great 
eyes full of sorrowful wonder, lay licking his 
hurts. 

The wary doe divined the eagle's purpose, 
and whirled in time to thwart him, and to 
receive in her own flank the hot grip of the 
talons. Bleating sorrowfully, she shook the 
great creature off. She turned, staggered on 
her legs, and sank back on her haunches; her 
wonderful liquid eyes were full of that dread 
question that looks from the eyes of hunted 
innocence. 

The eagle was now close to her on the 
ground, but she did not have the assurance to 
strike at him. Moreover, her fawn lay only 
partly in shelter, and she was afraid that any 
movement of hers away from the spot might 
expose the little one. From her wide eyes of 
grief, she seemed to know that the golden rob- 
ber would get her baby, her first-born; but like 
a true mother she would defend it to the death. 
From a score of wounds she was now bleeding, 
and her convulsive gasps of fear and exhaus- 
tion told only too well the story of her suffer- 
ing. 

The eagle was apparently unharmed. Per- 
haps he had grown a bit warier, but he was 



The Golden Robber 91 

still relentless. Crouching once again low to 
the ground, he summoned his energy and his 
craftiness for the final attack. His keen eyes 
glistened, his great beak was thrust forward, 
and his talons were tingling for the fatal grip. 

But he did not launch himself on the bleed- 
ing and helpless doe, for out of the thicket 
came the sound of a step, then a shadow, then 
the uncouth figure of a negro turpentine hand, 
returning from his long day's work in the pine 
forest. His coat and his dinner-bucket were 
swung on a black-jack stick over his shoulder; 
his tattered trousers hung in ribbons about his 
bare feet. On his head was what had once 
been a derby hat, of which the rim alone now 
remained. He was softly humming an old 
negro melody as he plodded homeward, think- 
ing of the dinner that awaited him in his cabin. 

Suddenly emerging from the bay bushes, he 
came face to face with the strange, dramatic 
scene. 

"Kingdom come," he ejaculated, "dat is a 
pow'ful eagle!" 

The eagle heard and saw and hesitated. 
But the great bird knew his ancient enemy too 
well. Rising on labored pinions, he beat his 
way up through the pines, and went soaring 
off toward the delta of the Santee. 



92 Old Plantation Days 

The poor doe, freed from one peril, faced, 
as she thought, a worse one. But the ragged 
negro had a good heart. Far off through the 
lonely pine woods there was a cabin and a 
little brown baby, who would toddle up the 
sandy road to meet him and crow at his coming. 
So he merely stood there quietly, not wishing 
to frighten the mother further, yet wanting to 
make sure that the eagle did not return. Trem- 
ulously and cautiously, then, nosing the fawn 
before her with every furtive step, the wounded 
doe made her way slowly toward the fastness 
of the deep thicket, into which she and her 
little one disappeared. 

When they were out of sight, the negro 
walked over to where the combat had been 
fought. There he picked up a big wing- 
feather, a feather torn by the frantic mother 
from the golden robber. An hour later, when 
the doe and fawn were in safety, the feather 
was delighting a little brown baby, who rolled 
with it on the cabin floor while he tickled his 
toes and gurgled his infant joy. 



IX 

THE HAUNTED OAK 

GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH 
SHERMAN has much to do with this 
story; indeed, he is the real author; 
for if he had not marched so perilously close 
to the Rivers plantation, certain incidents would 
not have occurred. The faithful negroes would 
never have ransacked the house so frantically 
and carried off so much furniture into places of 
safety. But particularly the Rivers family 
silver and the great tea service of gold, which 
had been presented in Revolutionary days to 
Randolph Rivers by the colony he had so con- 
spicuously served, would never have been con- 
cealed with such fatal security. In the graves 
behind Sherman's march, bodies were buried; 
hut stranger were the things buried in the 
graves that were hastily digged in front of the 
invading army's advance. 

The Rivers family was absent when the plan- 
tation was menaced with the invasion of the 
Northern army. All the men were at the 
front. Roxane Rivers and her daughter were 

93 



94 Old Plantation Days 

in Charleston. They had come down from 
the plantation some weeks before, and they 
had left orders that, if any peril approached, 
Old Jason was to direct the disposal of the 
valuables of the house. Old Jason was the 
dusky autocrat who ruled all things and all 
people in the Plantation home, even the Rivers 
family itself, every member of which was will- 
ing to defer to the wise old negro's judgment 
on certain matters. When a friend in the city 
asked Roxane Rivers how she could leave her 
home in the country open, she replied that with 
Old Jason there it was safer than if she her- 
self were there, for he would take much better 
care of everything than she could. For all 
things belonging to the Rivers family. Old Ja- 
son's was a jealous love; and of its apprehend- 
ing ear and penetrating eye all the other ne- 
groes stood in awe. Not one of them would 
have dared to sleep in the Great House at 
night; but Old Jason slept there at night and 
stayed there all day, a faithful guardian of his 
master's possessions. 

But when strange, wild rumors, such as war 
alone can bring, began to travel up into the 
peaceful plantation regions; when some of the 
younger negroes began to leave the places and 
to straggle off to follow the alluring wake of 



The Haunted Oak 95 

the victorious army; and Avhen, distinctly borne 
on the western wind, came the dull throb of 
distant firing, Old Jason knew that the crisis 
had come. He therefore sent for twelve of 
the strongest negroes, apportioned to each 
some valuables of which they were to take 
charge, and despatched them into the gloomy 
recesses of Spencer's Swamp, a vast and mel- 
ancholy woodland wilderness that bordered the 
Rivers' lands. This strange procession made 
its way slowly down the sandy road and out 
of the plantation gateway. There were some 
astonishing feats done in that march. Tall 
Samson, true to his name, gathered to himself 
the huge mahogany sideboard and bore it off 
with amazing ease; Jehu carried the stately 
andirons from the fireplace of the ballroom, 
and they glinted in the sun as far as eye could 
follow him; Tony bore away five great mirrors 
that shot dazzling beams of reflected sunlight 
from the fields to the crests of the pines and 
back again; Esau, the plantation "hunterman," 
was appropriately charged with the care of the 
guns and pistols in the house, and he was loaded 
down with old duelling-pieces and silver-chased 
English fowling-guns. 

It was not until the last of these negroes 
had disappeared into the forest that Old Ja- 



96 Old Plantation Days 

son, with trembling hands, took the huge iron 
key that he kept hidden on his person and 
opened the deep closet where, he knew, the 
family silver and the gorgeous gold tea serv- 
ice were kept. In the shadowy recesses they 
glimmered from the shelves. Hanging near 
by were silk cases, some of which had come 
with the set; others, Jason's mistress, with the 
patient skill of a woman's hands of the old 
days, had made. The negro knew every piece 
of silver and gold, and he knew in which bag 
each one belonged. Had it not been his espe- 
cial pride for almost a lifetime to rub them 
with chamois skin until they glowed in the shade 
or glittered in the sunlight? 

Gently now he lifted down each piece with 
a care that only fidelity can bestow. The 
smaller ones he took first, until he felt sure 
of himself. Then followed the massy pieces, 
solid and marvelously chased. Each was 
slipped carefully into its bag. No one knew 
so well as Old Jason how to do this. Roxane 
Rivers had often said that in forty years he 
had never dented a piece of silver. Nor did 
the old man dent one piece now, although he 
was alone and excited, and the greatest respon- 
sibility of his life was upon him. 

He had brought to the closet a large sack 



The Haunted Oak 97 

full of rice straw. This he emptied on the 
floor of the closet. Now, as each piece of 
silver or gold was slipped into its silk case, Old 
Jason placed it gently in the big sack, packing 
about it snugly soft layers of the straw that he 
crushed in his strong hands. At length the 
task was done. The ancient servitor felt far 
back on each shelf, but there was nothing more. 
The large sack was nearly full. Old Jason 
tied it up; then he backed out of the closet, 
locked the door, shouldered the heavy sack 
gingerly, and made his way stealthily out of 
the house. He had sent all the other negroes 
toward Spencer's Swamp; when he reached the 
foot of the steps, he started in exactly the op- 
posite direction. 

In not meeting a soul in the course that he 
had taken. Old Jason succeeded in carrying out 
the first part of his plan. And when once he 
had passed through the shrubbery and across 
the pasture field, entering forthwith a primeval 
wood, he knew that he would not be followed. 
Of this he was positive; for he had determined 
to secrete the Rivers' treasure in the negro 
burying ground, into the mournful beauty of 
whose shades he had now come. No one on 
the whole plantation would follow him into 
that dread abode; and nothing but love and 



98 Old Plantation Days 

utter faithfulness ever induced Old Jason so 
to master his natural aversions to such a region 
as to enter it himself. 

In the gloomy fastness of that sanctuary, 
nearer the rice fields than the road, there stood 
a great live oak; a vast tree whose huge, tol- 
erant limbs spread far out over the sweet- 
smelling jungles of myrtle and jasmine vines. 
It was more than a century old, and the gray 
moss that draped its limbs with melancholy 
grace enhanced its ancient and venerable ap- 
pearance. So stately was the tree that about 
it brooded a spirit, and this spirit seemed to 
interpret the mystery and the awfulness of the 
woodland graveyard. 

In this oak, near the ground, was a huge 
hollow; and there was no negro on the Rivers 
plantation who did not believe, and who did not 
derive a certain fearsome pleasure from his 
belief, that it was the home of a graveyard 
"hant." Now, to the negro mind, a hant is 
not merely a spirit or a ghost; it is a ghost, a 
fiend, a loupgarou, all in one. In that word is 
conjured all the terrors of night, of silence, 
and of the grave. So it was that this oak, 
whose presence was known by every one within 
miles of the plantation, was seldom looked 
upon, even from afar, by human eyes. When 



The Haunted Oak 99 

there were 'coon and possum hunts at night, 
and the dogs happened to take a trail toward 
the great oak, the dusky hunters would pause, 
turn aside, and if peculiarly sensitive, would 
consider it an opportune time to go home. 
Once in the distant past a dog which had trailed 
toward the oak had not returned; but no ne- 
gro would believe the plausible thing — that he 
had been caught by an alligator in the rice- 
fields — but insisted that a "hant" had made way 
with the unfortunate creature. Even at times 
of funerals, when large groups of negroes 
would enter the dread sanctuary, they avoided 
approaching the haunted oak; and the glances 
which they cast in its direction through the 
woodland were wary and furtive. Once when 
one of these solemn processions had inadver- 
tently headed for the oak, it had, upon per- 
ceiving its fatal course, retraced its steps with 
too much speed for dignity. 

To this ancient tree Old Jason now bore his 
treasure. As he went deeper and deeper into 
the thickets approaching the oak, he began to 
talk to himself, knowing well that no human 
ear could hear him. Moreover, the sound of 
his voice broke the ghostly stillness suspended 
eerily about him, giving him a sense of human 
reassurance. 



100 Old Plantation Days 

"I is safe now," he said, meaning that his 
treasure was safe, as he felt anything but safe. 
"This is the grabeyaad. I done do the thing 
I was to do. Thank God for thatl I'se so 
glad that the silber and the gole is safe. I 
have every piece in this sack — yes, sah. And 
when Ole Missis done come home, I jest have 
to say, 'Yes, Ma'am; yes, Miss Roxane, I done 
hide it safe till Mr. Sherman done gone on his 
way 'bout his business. I done hide it all in 
the hant oak in the grabeyaad.' " 

Old Jason had now come to the mighty tree, 
towering portentously. Cautiously he slipped 
the sack from his shoulder until it rested softly 
on the ground. Leaving it there, he began to 
examine the hollow. It was at a convenient 
height above the ground, and the aperture was 
sufficiently large to admit the sack. Mastering 
his trepidation, Jason thrust his hand in; he 
could feel the bottom of the hollow. Though 
the thought had little to do with his errand, 
he reasoned that if the hollow were really the 
abode of a hant, the fearsome creature was not 
at home. Old Jason found the hollow dry, 
and the soft, rotten wood yielded to his touch. 
It seemed an ideal place in which his precious 
burden might repose. Jason turned, lifted the 
sack, slipped it into the hollow, and settled it 



The Hamited Oak 101 

tenderly into its place. It rested well below 
the aperture; no one not actually looking into 
the hollow would see it; and there was no one 
left in that part of the country, save Old Jason 
himself, who would dare to look into that 
haunted place. 

His task completed, the ancient negro made 
his way by another route out of the burying 
ground. At some distance from the oak he 
turned into a path, which led him at length 
to a road that skirted the cemetery. Jason 
reached this with a sigh of relief; for now if 
any one saw him, there could be no suspicion 
attached to his walking in an open, pineland 
road. On his old face was a glow of happi- 
ness as he turned in the direction of the planta- 
tion gateway. He would return now to the 
Great House, there to await whatever dangers 
might come, until the return of the family he 
had so faithfully served. But he felt, with 
thanksgiving in his heart, that his greatest dan- 
ger was past, the possibility of the loss of the 
treasure entrusted to his keeping. 

Old Jason had almost reached the gateway, 
beyond which the plantation home glimmered 
beneath its live oaks, when he was aware of 
soft foot-falls in the sandy roadway behind 
him. He turned quickly, to face two young 



102 Old Plantation Days 

negroes. Jason knew them; they were from 
another plantation down the coast. And his 
first glance at them gave him the feeling that 
they were away from home for no good rea- 
son. This suspicion became certainty when 
the two newcomers spoke to him. They as- 
sumed an air of nonchalant friendliness that 
Old Jason knew to be feigned. He realized 
that they, like all others of their kind, were 
aware of his position of responsibility, and 
that therefore they would not follow him and 
stop him on the plantation road unless they had 
business with him. And what business save 
that of a sinister nature could these wanderers 
have with him? Yet Jason granted them 
guardedly the benefit of a huge doubt. 

"You boys is a long way from home," he 
said gravely. "Is you gwine spend the night 
to the settlement?" 

"Maybe," said the older man evasively, "but 
we got a little business on hand first. Uncle Ja- 
son." 

Old Jason felt his heart begin to throb. 
Had they seen him emerge from the burying- 
ground? If so, could they have guessed his 
mission there? The two negroes drew up 
very close to the old plantation servitor. The 



The Haunted Oak 103 

ancient regime was face to face with the new 
and the strange and the lawless. 

"You say we Is a long way from home," the 
younger negro said In an Insinuating voice, 
"but we ain't got no home. You Is free. We 
Is free. And all that did belong to others, we 
can take It now, 'caze we Is free." 

Old Jason understood what was meant. 
This kind of talk, he dimly surmised, must be 
the fruit of war and of sudden emancipation. 
He experienced a feeling of anger that these 
two upstarts should attempt to try any new 
doctrines on him, especially such doctrines. He 
had been an autocrat too long to hear with any 
feeling but one of hatred and scorn the wild 
ideas of adjusted relationships that a too sud- 
den and violent democracy brings abortively 
forth. Jason did not withhold his feelings. 

"If you ain't got no home," he said, "that 
is because you won't work. And If you think 
anything on this Rivers place belongs to you," 
he added, with rising Indignation, "you better 
change your mind. You Is free," he went on 
with trenchant emphasis, "but you ain't free 
to steal." 

With this Old Jason turned toward the gate- 
way. He had no time to spend on such men 



104 Old Plantation Days 

and he meant his actions to show It. But as 
he turned, the younger of the two negroes 
stepped quickly forward and placed himself 
between Jason and the gate. The older man 
moved up to close It on the old servant. 

"Now, Uncle Jason," one said, "there ain't 
no hurry for you to go. Is you gwine kill 
yourself working for the white folks? 'Sides, 
we ain't done with this little business yet." 

"What you want?" asked Jason abruptly 
and with resentful heat. 

"We want what you done hide," said the 
older negro. "These white folks," he added 
depreciatingly, his eye falling before Jason's 
stern one, "ain't neber coming back nohow. 
We will neber see them no more." 

"Where is you gwine that you will neber 
see them no more?" asked Old Jason with fine 
sarcasm. But the negroes were not in the 
least touched by this. They felt, perhaps, that 
they were abreast of the times, whereas Old 
Jason could never be brought to understand 
and to take advantage of new conditions. But 
they felt that he and what he stood for and 
what he had secreted In the woods were now in 
their power. By a concert of action they sidled 
up to the old negro, each one taking him by 
an arm. 



The Haunted Oak 105 

"We ain't gwine to hurt you," said the 
younger in his whining voice, "but you is to 
lead us to where the white folks' valu'bles is. 
You know the way," he added, stepping for- 
ward down the road and bringing Old Jason 
with him. 

There was a brief struggle. Jason freed 
his right arm and struck one of his assailants, 
who, with a sinister swiftness, whipped a heavy 
pistol from his bosom, clubbed it, and dealt the 
old negro a vicious blow on the back of the 
head. Jason's knees quavered. His eyes 
opened wide, then closed; his hands clenched 
convulsively. He sank to the ground and lay 
still. 

"You done kill the ole grandpa," said the 
older negro. The two looked furtively about. 
Their eyes dwelt for a guilty moment on the 
unconscious Jason. Then silently, fearfully, 
they slunk off into the deep woods, leaving the 
Rivers' champion prone in the plantation road. 

It was quite dark when Old Jason recovered 
consciousness. He was sadly bewildered, seem- 
ing to be able to recall nothing. All recollec- 
tion of his late encounter had passed from him; 
he could not remember how he happened to 
be there in the twilight by the gateway. But 
he knew well enough who he was, and that his 



106 Old Plantation Days 

post of duty was at the Great House. The 
nature of his fidelity was such that his first 
movement was in the direction of the Rivers 
home. 

It was only after a long and bewildered strug- 
gle that Old Jason reached the house; and 
there he went to sleep in the small back room 
that had been apportioned to him. He lapsed 
into sleep's unconscious state without being 
aware that a deeper unconsciousness had come 
over his memory. 

His awakening on the morrow was an awak- 
ening to his old duties; and he went about the 
house as usual, assiduously busy about the same 
tasks that had engaged his strength and his 
faithfulness every day for forty years. 

During the days that succeeded, cheering 
news came from the west. The great army 
had passed northward, leaving the melancholy, 
blackened ruins of many stately homes, but pass- 
ing untouched the Rivers plantation. Old Ja- 
son began to feel that it would be safe to have 
his henchmen bring from the swamp the hidden 
pieces of furniture. Indeed, he had fully made 
up his mind to it one day, when the sun shone 
brightly and peacefully, and when there seemed 
to be in the atmosphere no hint of the reced- 
ing alarms of war. But as Jason was about 



The Haunted Oak 107 

to start for the negro settlement to carry 
through his plan, he saw a carriage driving up 
through the avenue. His heart almost stopped 
beating for the moment, for he imagined it 
might be General Sherman himself, of whose 
personality Old Jason had conjured a fear- 
some image. But as it drew up to the steps, 
from it alighted Roxane Rivers, whom the old 
negro welcomed with an affectionate gladness 
that was ample proof of how he had kept the 
faith. 

"I knew you would be here to meet me, Ja- 
son," she said, "you have never failed us. You 
are always at your post of duty. . . . No Ro- 
man soldier was ever more faithful," she added 
to herself as the loyal old servant with rever- 
ent pride bowed her into the house. "Is every 
one safe, Jason?" she asked. 

"Yes, Ma'am; yes, Miss Roxane; and every- 
thing you give me to keep is same how you 
left him. We done beared the shootin' but no- 
body done come this side. I know. Ma'am, 
'caze I been here all the time." 

On entering the dining-room, the appraising 
eye of the mistress fell on the vacant spaces 
whence the massive pieces of furniture had been 
taken. Jason quickly explained. "I wuz 
gwine to have them brought back to-day," he 



108 Old Plantation l)ai/s 

added, "when I done see your carri:i<;c coniin' 
up the avenue." 

Roxane Rivers was so eager to restore the 
order and tl\e arrangement of the home that 
she despatched Old Jason immediately to the 
settlement to have the other negroes bring 
in the furniture. In an hour's time the order 
had been executed, and through the plantation 
gateway entered a strange procession. It 
looked like moving day, a funeral, and a re- 
turning picnic party all in one. And it was 
with amusement and astonishment and pride 
that Roxane Rivers viewed the approaching 
multitude. Her pride was due to the fact that 
some negroes, who had always been consid- 
ered the most shiftless and unreliable, the very 
ones she might have expected to be into mis- 
chief, were now doing their share. She saw 
the crafty Tall Samson bearing, as if in tri- 
umph, the massy sideboard. And there was 
Jehu, laboring with the huge andirons. Tom 
and Tony, two former incorrigiblcs. were man- 
fully bringing in the great divan belonging in 
the living-room. Along the fringes of the pro- 
cession were little children, running excitedly 
and laughing at the efforts of their elders. 

In due time all the furniture had been re- 
placed; and then followed a dinner in the big 



The Haunted Oak 109 

plantation kitchen for the workers. Only Old 
Jason was absent. He was reporting in detail 
on the things which had been taken from the 
house, checking off those that had been re- 
turned. At last Roxane Rivers asked him 
about the family silver and the gold tea serv- 
ice. 

"Of course you looked after those yourself, 
Jason," she said. "I know you wouldn't have 
let any one else touch them." 

Jason looked curiously puzzled, and he shook 
his gray head slowly. "No, Ma'am," he an- 
swered, "I didn't take the silber and the gole. 
The silber and the gole," he repeated musingly, 
*'they must be in the closet, same how they al- 
ways been." 

Together they went to the closet door. 
There the ancient servitor produced the mas- 
sive key, turned it in the lock, and held the door 
wide for the mistress of the plantation to enter. 
The sun was sloping westward, and certain 
dim beams of it shone palely into the dark 
recess. Roxane Rivers stepped forward and 
looked about. She had had no premonition 
that anything was wrong; her faith in Jason 
would never have permitted it. But her sur- 
prise swiftly became fear as she viewed the 
empty closet, felt vainly on the shelves, and 



110 Old Plantation Days 

saw that even the silk, cases were gone from 
their places along the wall. 

"Why, Jason," she said, "there is nothing 
here." 

The old negro shuffled forward, a look of 
incredulity on his face. 

*'Ain't here, Miss Roxanc ? But he must be 
here. I done shine him last week. I done — " 

"But haven't you had the key all the time, 
Jason?" 

"Miss Roxane," he answered, "you know I 
wouldn't 'low nobody to touch that key. No, 
sah," he added mutteringly, "that is my key, 
and 1 have it by me day and night." 

"But the silver, and the beautiful service set 
— don't you know where they are, Jason? 
Surely you must have taken them out and hid- 
den them in some safer place." 

A strange light came into Old Jason's eyes. 
He seemed to be gazing upon a scene that was 
no longer visible. But then, not without a 
struggle on Jason's part to keep it alive, the 
light faded. 

"1 don't 'member," the old man said, brok- 
enly, pitifully. "Miss Roxane, the gole and 
the silber been here, but I don't know where 
he is now. I don't 'member." And to all 
her queries. Old Jason had but one sad and 



The Haunted Oak 111 

Inconclusive rejoinder: "I don't 'member." 
The days passed into weeks, and these weeks 
into months. Slowly the work of the planta- 
tion adjusted itself to the new and strange con- 
ditions. Few negroes had left the Rivers 
place, and those who did so were of a restless 
and uncertain sort. Though Roxane Rivers 
could not escape the haunting thought that Old 
Jason knew of the hiding place of the lost treas- 
ure, she ceased to question him on the matter, 
and she retained him In his high position of 
trust and honor. Indirectly, when the loss of 
the silver would be felt on those regular days 
when the old negro had been wont to clean it, 
the question of Its fate arose. But always the 
pathetic "I don't 'member" closed the ques- 
tion. 

The time approached when the men of the 
Rivers family turned their faces homeward; 
one, indeed, would not return; but his mother 
felt a solemn pride in the sacrifice which he 
had made of himself and that she made of him. 
Hers was a just pride, too, In the fact that the 
old plantation home would be ready to wel- 
come the soldiers back. There was hardly a 
thing gone. Nearly all the negroes had been 
faithful. Old Jason — but there the haunting 
suspicion would return. If he had but kept 



112 Old Plantation Bays 

his trust, what a record of fidelity would she 
have to show her husband and her sons! Yet 
she could not convince herself that the old serv- 
ant had betrayed that trust. 

One day the mistress of the plantation went 
down to the gateway to tie the gate open. 
There was no stock to wander in and out, and 
she wanted the gate wide when her men re- 
turned, which might be at any hour of the day 
or night. It was late in the afternoon; and, 
her task accomplished, she stood looking back 
at the Great House, dreaming in its shelter of 
oaks. Suddenly down the road she saw Old 
Jason coming. He was going home to the 
settlement. As he came up he paused with his 
hat in his hand. 

"We must keep looking for them, Jason," 
she said, "for we must be found watching when 
they come. They will be as glad to see you 
as if you were one of the family, Jason. How 
I wish," she added musingly, "that we had not 
lost the silver, and the gold tea service. . . ." 

Old Jason looked back at the woods; then 
his gaze turned toward the house. His dim 
eyes welled with tears. 

"Oh, Miss Roxane," he said tremulously, "if 
I could 'member, — if I only could 'member!" 

A moment later he had passed on down the 



The Haunted Oak 113 

lonely road, shaking his head and muttering. 

Roxane Rivers turned back thoughtfully to- 
ward the house; but a sudden call from the 
dusky road down which Jason had disappeared 
arrested her steps. She paused to listen. She 
heard the cry repeated, and she knew it to be 
one for help. Though fully aware of the dan- 
ger she might be facing, she hurried in the di- 
rection whence the cry had come. 

In the shadowy road not far from the gate- 
way she came in sight of two forms bending 
over some one prostrate in the road. On her 
approach these two rushed away into the dark- 
ening woods. The fear that guilt alone can 
give was upon them. But Old Jason lay as he 
had fallen. He was lying at a peculiar angle, 
and his body looked crumpled. 

Kneeling beside him in the twilight road, 
Roxane Rivers spoke to him, chafed his rough 
old hands, laid her hand over his heart, to feel 
but a faint beating there. But her voice roused 
him. His eyes looked into hers; and the light 
therein was the peace that passeth understand- 
ing. 

"Miss Roxane" — the words came feebly and 
slowly, yet with a great hushed gladness — "I 
done hide it in the hant oak. I done 'member 
now. Them men you see jest now, they done 



114 Old Plantation Days 

fight me once before to make me tell them 
where I hide it. I 'member it all now. We 
been in a fight by the gate, and one hit me, here 
in my head, Miss Roxane, and I done forget 
everything. But this time, when they done 
jump on me at the same place, it all come 
back." 

The old negro's eyes closed; his body 
seemed to relax. But Roxane Rivers heard 
faintly, as if from a voice in another land and 
life, *'I 'member; I 'member." 

By the haunted oak in the burying ground 
on the Rivers plantation is a grave surrounded 
by a little iron railing. And the brief inscrip- 
tion on the plain white stone is a part of the 
heritage of the Rivers family. It reads: "Ja- 
son: Faithful unto death." And to that hum- 
ble grave generations yet unborn of the Rivers 
family shall go in reverence. 



X 

A MONARCH OF THE SKY 

FROM the lonely shores of Cedar Island 
the tall palmettoes with the blasted 
tops gazed gauntly out to sea. The 
wind was eerie through the withered sedge, 
murmuring mysteriously over the black marsh- 
circled beach-pools. The red moon, hanging 
low above the heaving ocean, seemed lost in 
moody contemplation of the spectral scene that 
her own light enchanted. From the northeast 
and the southwest flashed the beacons of soli- 
tary light-houses, answering each other across 
the miles. To the east lay the lordly Atlantic. 
To the northward, fringing the Carolina coast 
to a depth of fifty miles, loomed, shadowy and 
vast, the great long-leaf pine forest. And 
through the scented woods and out into the 
spacious delta-country, moving in beauty and 
power by plantation, swamp, and wide ricefield, 
the great Santee River rolled on majestic to- 
ward the sunrise seas. And over the land and 
the water, bending its bow of beauty from 
horizon to horizon, the day-sky, with her light 

115 



116 Old Plantation Days 

and her colors and her joy; and the night-sky, 
with her stars and her splendor and her peace, 
— over the land and the water this sky was 
lovely. And the Monarch of the Sky above 
the stormy river-mouth was a great bald-eagle, 
noble, wise, and — hunted. 

It was now well on toward daylight, and the 
eagle, lone on his roost in a shadowy pine on 
Cedar Island, awaited with the dignified pa- 
tience that befits true royalty the coming of 
the light. 

To him the day would bring his beautiful 
bright kingdom of the sky. It would bring him 
the fierce delight of swooping down upon his 
prey, and the rapture of a triumph over the 
wary mallards that flocked in the warm, marsh- 
sheltered ditches in the old abandoned rice- 
fields. It would bring him the calm joy of 
bathing in the blue sea of the air, sunning him- 
self as he circled in the far sky. The day 
would lead him forth to conquer, to triumph, 
and to reign. But, ah me, it would never more 
lead him forth to companionship and love. It 
had been three years since London, the negro 
poacher and duck-hunter, had killed his mate; 
and since then the fierce old eagle had become 
solitary. Lone was the flight that bore him 



A Monarch of the Sky 117 

above riccfield and river, lone was his outgoing 
and his homecoming; lone stood he on his perch 
in the ancient pine, the wise inscrutable mon- 
arch; and lonely was his stormy scream, haunt- 
ing the remote solitudes of the coast. From 
day to day he beat his splendid way from ocean 
to cypress-swamp, far up the river, and back 
again, taking his fair toll of the rice-fed mal- 
lards. But by his side, neither in the bare and 
brooding winter, nor in the shimmering days 
of spring, nor in the crimson and the golden 
of the autumn was there to be found a com- 
panion for him. And the proud old heart be- 
neath the tawny brown breast knew that for 
him love would never come again. 

It is not well to be lonely, not even for an 
eagle; but to be lonely and fearful is terrible. 
Not that the Monarch of the Sky bore the 
heart of a coward; not so. But it was a heart 
that held its life and dominion by strategy as 
well as by strength; and it had been taught the 
bitterest lesson of its life by a negro with a 
gun. Five times had the white duckers shot 
at him, and one of them had driven a charge 
of shot under his wing, but the distance had 
been too great and the lead had not pierced 
him. Yet he had seen the dread London kill 
his beautiful mate; had heard the hollow re- 



118 Old Plantation Bays 

verberation of his musket, and had seen his 
companion, who was saiHng at his side, shud- 
der, crumple up sickly, and drop limply into the 
edge of the marsh. And the Monarch knew 
full well that the day he came within range of 
London's musket would be his last. It seemed 
shameful that so lordly a bird should live in 
fear, passing his days as it were with a price 
on his head. And always he was apprehensive; 
always, except when, lost in the light of the 
towering skies, he ranged beyond the vision of 
man and beyond his power. 

Each morning the eagle left his roost with 
the sunrise, and now the sun was glowing just 
below the horizon. Over the crested seas of 
the glimmering inlet the long lances of light 
rose steadily. All the trees along the coast 
stood motionless in the rosy bath of dawn, and 
even the melancholy cedars, driven into agon- 
ized postures by fierce autumnal gales, took on 
a soft light of beautiful fading. And the se- 
date old Santee, shrouded in filmy mist, blushed 
beneath the sunlight as a bride beneath her veil. 
And when the sun cleared the ocean, the gaunt 
eagle launched himself forth upon the soft and 
fragrant sea of the heavens. The Monarch 
was once again the master of his beloved king- 
dom. 



A Monarch of the Sky 119 

As he left the deep shadow of the dewy 
woods, his flight took an upward angle, so that 
when he came soaring out over the bare 
beaches, he was out of gunshot. His superb 
flight betrayed sadly by these and similar tactics 
that he was a confirmed fugitive. 

The Monarch swept over Cedar Island 
beach, headed across the tawny inlet toward 
Ford's Point, raised a black cloud of mallards, 
sporting in the shallow water to leeward of 
the point, and then turned up the broad reaches 
of the Santee. Beneath him a tiny tug-boat 
pushed her way slowly out to the inlet for a 
tow. Beneath him, too, flock after flock of sea- 
ward-going ducks hurried, veering low when 
they made out the Monarch far above them. 
Off a high blufi^ where a creek split an island 
in the river, the eagle saw a flock of about 
sixty mallards, close in shore. His wings 
curved downward, and with the wind roaring 
behind him he dropped through the sky to- 
ward his prey. Yet long before he came 
within striking distance, his keen eyes caught 
the sight of twinkling barrels of steel in the 
marsh on the bluff, and a second sight at the 
ducks showed them to be decoys. The eagle 
towered In flight, changed his course, and came 
not near the earth again until he alighted on 



120 Old Plantation Days 

the bleached and craggy top of a dead cypress, 
far up in tlie lonely Laurel Hill Swamp, ten 
miles from Cedar Island. 

There the Monarch brooded over his ancient 
wrongs; over the loss of his mate, over his 
hunted life, brooding over these with a savage 
loneliness. Toward noon he foraged through 
Wampce Creek, that wound its silent and tor- 
tuous way far up into the heart of the swamp. 
But he did not find any wood-ducks there. The 
tide was low, and the day very calm. Doubt- 
less they were in the ricefields far down the 
river. Once he struck fiercely at a mild bit- 
tern, ambushed in the muddy marsh, only to 
swerve away from the terrified, cowering ob- 
ject of his attack with regal scorn. 

All day long he alternated between the dry 
cypress and the nearby creek, hoping to pick 
up a summer duck or a stray mallard. But 
the whole region seemed deserted, save for a 
few little pitiful happy song-birds, warbling in 
the mellow sunlight under the protection of 
friendly thickets. 

Toward afternoon the Monarch, his hunger 
whetted by his fruitless toil and vigilance of 
the day, wheeled down from his sentinel post 
on the cypress, and directed his flight towai\J 
the river-mouth. As he passed over the spa- 



A Monarch of the Shy 121 

cious fields In the delta, he flushed many mal- 
lards, and many more crouched beside reedy 
tussocks until he had passed. Tiiey knew well 
his ways, and they feared nothing in life so 
much as the sinister splendor of his presence. 
When his flight had brought him down the 
river as far as Cane Gap, an inlet from the sea 
opening into the Santee, and not more than 
three miles from Cedar Island, the eagle saw, 
riding on the lapping waves near the shore, 
four or five mallards. As he was flying over 
the marsh and not down the open river, he 
could approach them under cover of the tall 
reedy growth, sinking from sight until he rushed 
clear of the marsh, and was on his prey. So 
he swerved downward until his great brown 
body and his wide wings grazed the tremulous 
tops of the rank growths in the wild waste 
field. On, on the eagle sped, his powerful 
pinions driving him forward with matchless 
swiftness, his gaunt and proud old head out- 
stretched in fiery eagerness, and his gripped 
talons aching for the fall. Over creek and 
shallow bay, over bush and cane-brake, his 
speed increasing every moment, the great mon- 
arch of the sky rushed down upon his prey. 

Meanwhile, concealed in the heavy canes on 
the river-edge, scanning the water and the sky 



122 Old Plantation Days 

for ducks, London the poacher sat facing his 
five battered decoys, his deadly musket across 
his knees. The sun was almost down, and 
the air would soon be alive with the evening 
flight, and he had fair hopes of luring a few 
gray mallards or black-ducks within range. 
He was crouched so low that he was practically 
invisible. He knew how to hide in a blind. 
But so far he had had no luck at all. He 
hadn't burnt powder once, and he had been 
on the stand an hour. His legs were cramped 
and cold, and his temper none the best. He 
felt like shooting any kind of a duck that came 
along. As the moments passed and the in- 
coming flight of ducks from the sea began, 
London became more and more restless. One 
small flock drew to the stool, only to flare away 
out of gunshot. The negro cursed them sul- 
lenly. Then in a twinkling he heard a rush, 
a great form shadowed him, and the Monarch 
of the Sky, with wings arched and talons wide, 
shot over the edge of the blind and fell on his 
prey. He grappled one big drake-decoy, sink- 
ing his claws into the soft wood, and actually 
lifted him half out of the water. But even 
on the moment the old eagle knew his fatal 
mistake. 

From the nearby marsh the fateful black 



A Monarch of the Sky 123 

barrel of London's musket was thrust with cold- 
blooded deliberation. 

"Dat ole rascal!" muttered the negro be- 
tween his teeth. 

At last the eagle had come within range of 
London's gun. And the poacher was going to 
shoot him, partly because he was angry and 
partly because eagles could be sold in the 
nearby village to a taxidermist. He leveled 
his musket, the heavy brass sight finding its 
mark against the eagle's brown breast. He 
was only forty yards away, and duckshot at 
that distance would be deadly. And, wise be- 
yond the wisdom usually accorded the bird 
kingdom, the eagle realized his sickening peril. 

To make it worse the eagle blundered as he 
released his intended victim, and his piercing 
eyes saw death looking him in the face. Per- 
haps through his brain flashed the remembrance 
of that far-off morning when his beautiful mate 
had dropped from her place at his side, a place 
that would ever be empty. With ponderous 
strokes he beat violently upward, while Lon- 
don's sight rested the more surely on his heart. 

Suddenly, over the waters aglow with the 
colors of the sunset, straight for the decoys, 
two green-wing teal sped swiftly. Simple- 
hearted, unsuspecting, companionable little fel- 



124 Old Pluntation Days 

lows they were. In a moment London had 
seen them, and his gun-sight shifted away from 
the rising eagle. Two teal make a pair of 
ducks, a better bag than an eagle. 

Up rose the great monarch, towering far 
and high. The frightened teal flared wide at 
sight of that dread black apparition. And 
London was left crouching, with his musket at 
his shoulder, in the cold marsh. 

The Monarch of the Sky winged his way ma- 
jestically through the twilight once more down 
to his home on Cedar Island. Far, far through 
the rosy afterglow the lone and splendid eagle 
pursued his lordly flight, until at last he was 
lost to the vision of man in the liberty of God's 
sky. 



XI 



THE DUEL IN CUMMINGS 

COLONEL JOCELYN was not without 
honor as a prophet in his own coun- 
try. This was, perhaps, due to the 
fact that the Colonel was prepared to back any 
speculation that he desired to make with the 
same personal interest that a question involv- 
ing his personal honor would have occasioned; 
and his austerity on matters touching the Code 
was the pride of three counties. It was not 
surprising, therefore, that, in view of the defer- 
ence accorded his insight into the future, his 
remark to the effect that Scipio Lightning would 
soon get the better of Wash Green should 
have been widely circulated in Cummings; and 
the good people of that community awaited 
the fulfilment of this prophecy with calm and 
flattering assurance. 

Scipio and Wash — or, more properly, Scipio 
Lightning and George Washington Alexander 
Burnsides Green, a vision of whose future had 
been granted Colonel Jocelyn — were negroes 
without visible means of support. For a long 

125 



126 Old Plantation Days 

time their livelihood had depended on the char- 
ity of Cummings; and that little seacoast vil- 
lage was wont to be indulgent toward those 
who were sufficiently picturesque to contribute 
to the gaiety of the public. Not infrequently 
the question of their arrest and imprisonment 
on various charges was raised; but the possi- 
bility of a Cummings without Scipio and Wash, 
guilty as they were, caused such a hum of dis- 
approval that even the white-haired Justice of 
the Peace was forced to compromise his con- 
science in the broader interests of humanity; 
Scipio and Wash were permitted to remain at 
large. 

Wash Green had the reputation of being 
a very wily negro; strange stories were told of 
his ingenuity and cunning. He was middle- 
aged, squat, and reverent looking. He wore 
glasses — not that his eyes were weak, but be- 
cause they added to his sanctified air. With 
the same appealing force the innumerable 
patches in his raiment enhanced his piety. His 
broad face was benign and childlike, and the 
slyness of his furtive eyes might well have been 
interpreted as a sainted and bashful meekness. 
He never lost his equanimity; he could lie with 
a Scriptural accent and could steal chickens and 
watermelons benevolently. Occasionally he 



The Duel in Cummings 127 

made a little money by holding Doctor Be- 
thune's horses; but his passionate aversion to 
work was the chief characteristic which marked 
him as Scipio's soul-mate. 

Scipio was not wily, nor did he pretend to 
be. He was too tall and too strong and too 
simple-hearted to be treacherous. He was 
very typical of a certain class of negro; ebony, 
gaunt, smiling. His home for many years had 
been on one of the nearby rice plantations, and 
his heart was still there; however, because of 
domestic aberrations, he had taken temporary 
refuge in Cummings. Once since his coming 
he had actually worked a whole week without 
a break; and when a detractor sought to slander 
him his friends defended him on the score of 
this historic instance. Nothing in the world 
should worry a man of this nature; but one 
thing worried Scipio : Wash Green. 

No two men are so suspicious of each other 
as two worthless men; and this feeling between 
Scipio and Wash, which had begun long years 
before, had finally deepened into a rivalry that 
had attracted all Cummings. Their feeling 
had passed beyond the point where an appeal 
to mere physical supremacy could settle it; it 
must needs be a mental duel, an intellectual 
fray; for the negro is not beneath appreciating 



128 Old Plantation Days 

a keen thrust of thought and a fine parry of wit. 
The rivals were spurred on by all the loafers 
in Cummings, and there were times when a 
personal encounter seemed imminent; but the 
cunning of Wash always guided him safely past 
that rock, for he knew what Scipio could do 
along those lines. Wash, however, did not 
try to conceal the fact that he prided himself 
on his superior intellect and he took pains to 
have Scipio aware of the fact. 

What really brought the matter to a test was 
the remark (since become historic in Cum- 
mings) made by Colonel Jocelyn that Scipio 
would soon get the better of Wash. This in- 
telligence came to the rivals. It spurred on 
the one with serene confidence; the other felt 
that the hour to become famous had struck; 
for to be prophesied against was to be a blessed 
martyr, and Wash enjoyed being one; and then, 
if he could but frustrate the forecast of the 
great Colonel, all Cummings, even Scipio him- 
self, would be bound to pay him tribute and 
honor. 

A few days later Wash was invited to ad- 
dress the congregation of the little negro church 
in Cummings. In the light of his ability as a 
speaker, his moral turpitude had been over- 
looked. Bearing in mind the humiliating ef- 



The Ikiel in Cummings 129 

feet that any success of his would have on his 
rival, he prepared an elaborate sermon. He 
stood near the postoffice when the mail was 
being delivered, for it was at such a time that 
Doctor Bethune, Judge Wicklow, and Parson 
Benbow were wont to give the community the 
benefit of their professional learning in terms 
well suited to the needs of Wash. He remem- 
bered the longest and most rolling words of all, 
and these he treasured, rehearsed in secret, and 
longed for the hour of their delivery to come. 
When the night arrived Wash was elated 
past belief. He ignored Scipio when he passed 
him on his way to church. His pride was not 
lessened by his entrance into the sanctuary or 
when he ascended the pulpit. He saw with 
satisfaction that there were thirty or more peo- 
ple in the congregation; and there, too, was 
Scipio, sitting near the door. Ah, thought 
Wash, if he could but shine in the eyes of that 
company, to the everlasting confounding of 
Scipio, when would his glory fade ! Perhaps 
this very night would decide his fate for all 
time. He felt that the mantle of the Divine 
was upon his shoulders, and he accepted it with 
that respectful resignation which is the attitude 
of most wily men toward questions of a reli- 
gious nature. But this resignation was only 



130 Old Plantation Days 

assumed; inwardly he was burning with the 
beaut}^ of the sermon that would utterly rout 
the pretentions of his rival. 

After a few hymns had been sung, the time 
for the sermon came. Wash cleared his throat 
forensically and stood up. The Bible in his 
hand made the Animal in his face pathetic. 
He did not open the Book because he could not 
read. 

"My brederen an' sister," he began, "I'se 
gwine to onrabble de great ponderation. I 
want to tell you 'bout dat gaaden w'ere Adam 
lib wid Ebe." 

He paused to let his words take effect, not 
forgetting to look with serene and assured tri- 
umph at Scipio. 

"E-eh, Lord," cried a shrill-voiced woman, 
"but dat nigger know dat Bible !" 

Wash took this with becoming modesty, and 
Scipio shifted his seat uneasily. As long as 
his rival continued to preach well, Scipio's 
chances for fulfilling the prophecy were slight. 
Unlike Macaulay's Puritan, he was not deeply 
read in Biblical lore. He saw one way only 
of snatching victory from apparent defeat: if 
he could turn the laugh on Wash the duel would 
go to him. If he could put an innocent ques- 
tion that Wash could not answer a certain 



The Duel in Cummings 131 

amount of satisfaction would be his. He clung 
to these thoughts while his rival proceeded. 

"Lemme tell you 'bout dis gaaden, an' 'bout 
Adam an' Ebe," he continued. "In dat same 
paradise dere been a tremenjous water-mocca- 
sin; an' dat same rep-tile was de ole debbil he- 
self. One day he came out fo' sun heself on 
dat ribber edge; an' 'bout dat same time Ebe 
gone down to de ribber fo' fetch a bucket o' 
water. Wen she see dat outrageous varmint 
she jump up on de rail-fence an' whoop fo' 
Adam. But dat Adam been 'sleep; 'cause he 
been wuk in de cotton field' all mornin'. You 
know, my brederen an' sister', dat all we po' 
niggers must wuk. De day am long an de wuk 
am haad, an' we po' niggers must do dat wuk! 
Po' nigger !" 

This adroit personal touch went to the hearts 
of his congregation. They were moved. 
They rocked and swayed on their seats with 
bowed heads, moaning softly and repeating, 
"Po' nigger !" Even Scipio felt the warm tears 
gather as the words of Wash took him back 
to the days (happily past) when he himself 
had labored. 

"I speck," continued the preacher, uncon- 
sciously presenting his admiration for slyness, 
"dat Adam hyeard dat whoopin' ; but Adam 



132 Old Plantation Days 

done see dat snake heself, an' he don't want 
to fool wid him. So he jes' lie on dat bench 
in de sun an' listen how Ebe she whoop." 

Alas for the sermon elaborately prepared! 
Alas for the cunning of Wash! Scipio per- 
ceived a rift in his rival's argument. He 
scented treason in the attitude of Adam. 
While Wash mopped his forehead ponderously, 
catching his second wind, Scipio stood up in 
the back of the church, making enough noise 
with the shuffling of his feet to attract atten- 
tion. He held all eyes. Wash felt faint. 
His rival looked very tall and confident. 

"My frien'," he said with a touch of right- 
eous anger in his voice, "w'at kind ob a nigger 
you call dat Adam anyhow? W'at kind of a 
decent nigger will let one outrageous rep-tile 
sca-a-re he wife? Answer me dat!" 

All the members of the congregation nodded 
their heads in approval of his words and mut- 
tered their approbation. Wash mopped his 
face feverishly. Dimly he began to see the 
issue : Scipio was attacking the personal char- 
acter of Adam, while he had held it up for 
admiration. 

"My frien'," continued the inexorable Scipio, 
"lemme ax you one mo' ponderation : w'at 
Adam an' Ebe, w'at dem triflin' niggers been 



The Duel in Cummings 133 

doin' in dat w'ite man gaaden anyhow? Bro' 
Wash, answer me dat!" 

Wash Green cleared his throat for a reply, 
but the congregation refused him the attempt. 
The high-voiced woman began to croon a song 
in a minor key and soon they all joined in the 
farewell chorus. The duel was over; Scipio 
had won. 

The next day Cummings knew the details 
of the duel, and every one congratulated Colo- 
nel Jocelyn on his prophetic power of vision. 
And the Colonel accepted these tributes with 
due modesty, as befitting one whose code of 
honor was austere. 



XII 

AT LOW TIDE 

THE sea-wind over the marshes was 
warm and fragrant. The harvest 
moon was rising and the night-mists 
broke in silent foam, letting the moon's dimly 
iridescent rays pierce through them to shine 
palely on the water beneath. The surf fell 
sleepily on the drowsy shore. Far back in the 
pine woods behind the marshes two horned 
owls were answering each other with wonder- 
ful soft voices. In the creeks where the dull 
foam of the ebb glimmered, fish of all kinds 
broke water, hunted or were hunted. One by 
one, as the tide receded, the gleaming black 
oyster banks came out on the shores below the 
marsh line. Here and there where a small 
creek emptied into a larger, or where there was 
a sharp bend, the ebb-tide eddies, full of float- 
ing sedge and cloudy foam, whirled softly in 
the moonlight. There seemed to be life astir 
everywhere — the life which awoke with the 
ebb and flourished by virtue of its withdrawal: 
there were sharks sliding wickedly along the 

134 



At Low Tide 135 

shores; there were herons standing like specters 
over ebbing creeks; there were shear-waters 
and willets and night hawks; on a steep muddy 
bank two otters were playing; through the high 
marsh and thick sedge a whole family of minks 
scuttled, glided and ran. Now and then a 
clapper-rail, disturbed by some marauder or 
made sentimental by the moonlight, rose and 
flew a few rods with dangling legs. Occasion- 
ally a tiny exquisite marsh sparrow would flit 
with gay independence over a narrow creek. 
The marsh and the water and the air were alive. 
The sea called to the marsh and tide, and the 
marsh sighed to the pine woods, which an- 
swered melodiously. The marsh called to the 
pine woods, and especially to a certain raccoon 
which all day long had slept in a blanket of 
Spanish moss in the high fork of a huge black- 
gum tree that stood on the edge of the forest 
near the beach. The night before he had for- 
aged in the swamp and in the nearby corn field, 
but this night — with the tide going out, and the 
moon so bright, and the marshes whispering to 
him — how could he resist the oyster bank that 
lay so alluringly across the first stretch of 
marsh, and all the glorious side chances of 
catching a few fish in the shallow creeks? 
He could not resist. He yawned, stretched 



136 Old Plantation Days 

his legs, and, climbing high enough to clear the 
moss, he began to back slowly down the tree. 
He was an old raccoon and very wary. Every 
ten feet or so he would stop backing and hang 
breathless, listening for any noises that might 
send him scurrying back to his perch, there to 
crouch in watchful silence until the trouble and 
every vestige of the shadow of it had passed. 
But there were no such sounds. The marsh 
only seemed to call the more insistently to the 
dark pines, and the raccoon, gaining the ground 
at length, paced off under the low, gnarled red 
cedars and scrub oaks. He struck a hog path 
on the edge of the high sedge and racked 
swiftly through it, coming out on the thin strip 
of beach that bordered the marsh. Before him 
the wide marshes were softly illumined by the 
moonlight. He picked his way through the 
mud with its spear-marsh growth, crossed a lit- 
tle trickling brackish stream that came out of 
the pine woods, and began to nose his way 
through an old, half-overgrown, water-sodden 
runway that led to the marsh. As he ap- 
proached the edge of the wide creek the exqui- 
site scents became more and more tempting. 
He racked faster: once he might have caught 
a mullet in a little drain, but in his haste to 
reach the oysters he forgot some of his stealth 



At Low Tide 137 

and cunning. He hurried on, coming soon to 
a small hummock that lay directly in his path. 
Ordinarily he would have avoided it, choosing 
to go around the high ground rather than pass 
under the low bushes, whose heavy, bitter foli- 
age might hide untold danger. But he was in 
a great hurry this time, for the succulent, 
savory oysters were almost within sight. He 
ran up the sandy mud on the little incline and 
took the first mink path through the bushes. 
He knew that when he reached the other side 
of the hummock the oyster bed would lie be- 
fore him. But he never reached the other side 
of the hummock. Without warning of odor, 
of trembling bush, of bated breathing, without 
instinct of danger, there was a sharp click, 
cruel, terrifying, and the raccoon's foreleg was 
fast in the jaws of a steel trap. 

Scipio had set it there on the low tide that 
morning, paddling all the way down the river 
to put the trap out in the marsh; but he had 
not set for a coon; he knew of easier ways to 
catch them; he was after the old white-nosed 
otter that for years had balked all his efforts 
to take him. Yet Scipio would not at all mind 
finding a big corn-fed coon in his trap. He 
would have liked it almost as much as the rac- 
coon hated being there. 



138 Old Plantation Days 

With the first swift, blinding clench of the 
steel jaws he leapt up and back, snarling and 
gazing fiercely about for his assailant. He 
tugged wildly at his leg, numbed by the deep 
pain of a broken bone, and bit and clawed at 
the trap. He pulled from every angle, limp- 
ing about on three legs, whining piteously, and 
glancing up and down the path, fearing some 
new form of attack and not understanding 
why his enemy did not strike him again. But 
no further blow came. He paused in his strug- 
gle and listened cunningly. The wind sighed 
through the low bushes, the surf rushed and 
fell softly on the distant front beach, the fish 
in the creeks leapt and played, hunted or were 
hunted, the yellow glory of the moon streamed 
down on the wide marsh. 

The raccoon sat down on his haunches and 
whined. He thought of the one place where 
he longed to be — safe in the high fork of the 
big black-gum tree. Once more he snarled 
and tugged fiercely. He listened again, but 
heard only the plaintive wind and the warm 
lapping of the waves and the fisli breaking 
water. It was past midnight. He must get 
back to the big tree before daylight; he never 
hunted after 4 o'clock. The pain in the broken 



At Low Tide 139 

leg was getting worse. He must get away; 
but how? In a little while the flood would 
be in and he would have to swim for shore. 
He had never swum but once, and that was 
because he had been cut off. And he loathed 
it heartily; it took too long for his heavy coat 
to dry. But if he could get away from the 
demon which was gnawing his leg off he would 
swim and gladly. 

For the first time he examined cautiously and 
curiously the monster which held him. Tn real- 
ity it was only a small steel trap with teeth, 
fastened by a dog chain to one of the larger 
bushes; but to the raccoon in its grasp it seemed 
like a huge relentless monster of the ghostly 
night and of the mysterious marsh. He smelt 
about the trap, detecting for the first time the 
faint dread odor of the human hand and the 
tang of the rusting steel. His nose brushed 
against the part of his leg which dangled from 
the trap and he jerked back fearfully, think- 
ing that it belonged to some other creature. 
Then he examined it again, and saw that it 
was his own leg and that it was useless. The 
faces of the trap had closed just above the 
knee. The bone there was crushed and splin- 
tered and the skin and flesh were badly torn 
by the cold grip of the teeth. Once more the 



140 Old Plantation Days 

raccoon pulled back, though it gave him agony 
to do so, to be sure that he was held in that 
one place only. Then, with a strange light 
in his eyes and a look of ancient wisdom on his 
face, he sat down close to the trap and began 
to lick away the fur from that part of his leg 
just above the steel jaws. When the circle 
was complete and the place bare he sank his 
teeth into the flesh. His own warm blood 
flowed over his teeth and into his mouth. He 
gulped it down as a child gulps down its tears. 
Soon he had all the flesh cut; beneath were only 
the shattered bones and a few tendons. 
Stretching the tendons gently, he gnawed 
through them. The leg gave suddenly, and 
he nearly fell over. He was free ! 

But he did not move; he did not bound 
foolishly away as a mollie-cottontail would 
have done. Still holding the wounded leg up, 
he licked away the blood from the stump and 
pulled out carefully with his teeth a few splin- 
ters of bone. Then he eased himself down on 
three legs and ambled off painfully, leaving a 
wide trail of blood. 

The flood tide was coming in apace. In 
several small creeks the water rose over the 
raccoon's knees. The salt burnt his wound 
cruelly. At last he passed through the marsh, 



At Low Tide 141 

crossed the strip of beach, and finally came to 
the foot of the big gum tree. 

Rearing himself on his hind legs he struck 
the claws of his foreleg into the soft bark and 
pulled himself up. Then he took hold of the 
bark with his teeth until he could shift his foot- 
ing higher. Inch by weary inch he toiled up- 
ward until, just as the telltale light began to 
come in the east, and just as the moon sank 
over the sea, he dropped into the thick moss 
in the high fork of the black-gum tree. He 
lay very still; exhausted, but safe. Once he 
turned his eyes toward the marsh and saw, in 
the mist of the morning, the solitary figure of 
a negro, stalking about on the hummock. But 
the tide had covered the trail of blood. 

Where the sea wind calls to the marsh, 
blowing forever with sounds of the sea and 
of the waves, there is a certain marsh, a cer- 
tain pinewood, a certain hummock. And. the 
wariest of all creatures there is an old raccoon 
with his right foreleg cut ofif above the knee. 
The wound has long since healed, and he for- 
ages regularly In swamp, in field, and in marsh. 
But he never again crosses a hummock. And 
he is never quite at his ease unless he is lying 
in the warm bed of Spanish moss in the high 
fork of the big black-gum tree. 



XIII 

THE STRATEGY OF GALBOA 

GALBOA was by far the oldest of all 
the negroes in the Santee country. 
He was in "the white winter of his 
age"; and to his ancient and venerable aspect 
was added a dignity and a sense of superhuman 
understanding which demanded the tribute of 
awe. 

Galboa lived alone on the Eldorado. His 
cabin was the one nearest the plantation grave- 
yard. Indeed, non-e but he would have taken 
up his abode in dread proximity to that mys- 
terious, gloomy cemetery. About it were the 
wastes of a melancholy yellow sedgefield. All 
the negroes suspected, and many firmly believed, 
that out of the graveyard came fearful specters 
which were boon companions of old Galboa. 

Before his solitary little cabin were two 
stunted live-oaks, haunted by shrikes and mock- 
ing-birds. Built of rough pine logs, the cracks 
between which were more or less effectively 
stopped by pinestraw, bunches of grass, and 
bits of broken shingles, the cabin was hardly 

14.?. 



The Strategy of Galhoa 11-3 

a protection. The chimney was built of slate 
and clay; but the hand which had shaped it 
had only carried it halfway up the end of the 
cabin, so that all the logs above it were 
scorched and blackened. Behind the cabin 
were the last inland reaches of the long Eldo- 
rado ricefield. 

Galboa was to the negroes of the plantation 
what Mage Merlin must have been to the old 
Celts. He looked the personification of wis- 
dom. He was tall and spare, with powerful 
shoulders that his great age had not bowed; 
long, muscle-knotted arms, and large, strong 
hands. A heavy growth of white hair covered 
his head, and a long beard fell over his throat 
and breast. His manner, too, was venerable. 

Galboa's character was like his appearance; 
and Ned Alston could trust him when he could 
trust no other negro on the plantation. Not 
that most of them were dishonest; but rather 
that, if put to a severe test, they would gener- 
ally give way to fear or to excitement. But 
Galboa could be counted upon "night and day," 
as the planter used to put it. That was why, 
when Alston went into the diamond-back terra- 
pin business, he chose Galboa to mind the coo- 
ter-pen. 

This was the stockade in which the terrapin 



144 Old Plantation Days 

were kept until the height of the market should 
warrant their sale. It is like a huge wooden 
crate, set in an estuary, where the salt tide will 
flush it twice a day. Alston had his cooter- 
pen several miles down the river from Eldo- 
rado, in a little bay that made in from Alligator 
Creek. 

A cooter-pen must have a good watchman, 
and this watchman must be of a peculiarly sober 
and temperate disposition. He must be willing 
to stay by his post day and night; and, since 
a cooter-pen is generally located far from habi- 
tations, he must not mind living apart from his 
fellows in a lonely, out-of-the-way place. 

For such a position, old Galboa was admir- 
ably fitted. He was on good terms with lone^ 
liness and to him it would be no discomfort to 
be awake most of the night. Indeed, many 
Eldorado negroes believed that Galboa never 
slept at all. Then, Galboa would not be afraid 
of the marauders who would almost certainly 
visit the cooter-pen; for diamond-backs are 
valuable, and since it would be difficult to iden- 
tify them as stolen goods, they can readily be 
disposed of. 

So Galboa, at Alston's request, left his cabin 



The Strategy of Galboa 145 

on the plantation and took up his abode in a 
shack on the bank of Alligator Creek. The 
planter supplied his watchman with a musket; 
and, to repair instantly any damage that prowl- 
ers might make, he also let him have a hatchet 
and a box of nails. Like most negroes, espe- 
cially old ones, Galboa was secretive; and these 
implements he kept in a dry place under one 
of the joists of his shack. 

It was a hot night in August, and Galboa, 
who thought that the rising moon would carry 
on efficiently the watch he had begun, was doz- 
ing as soundly as the mosquitoes would permit. 
But in his sleep he heard the sound of a bump 
under his floor. He sat up on his rude cot 
and listened, but there came no further noise. 
Galboa kept two half-starved pigs; and as these 
often slept under his shack, he attributed the 
momentary noise to their restlessness. Out- 
side, through the tiny window toward the coast, 
the old man could see by the moonlight the 
dark cedars, the incoming tide, and the shad- 
owy green marsh through which the flood was 
stealing. On the shelving shore, gray curlews 
and little sandpipers were running, or standing 
and bobbing up and down after their quaint 
fashion. 



146 Old Plantation Days 

Galboa watched these familiar sights while 
he listened. After a few minutes, the intense 
stillness was suddenly and sharply broken by 
a peculiarly shrill sound, such as a nail gives 
when it is being drawn out of a tough, wet 
board. Galboa got up quickly and quietly, 
took hold of his musket, and went to the win- 
dow. Plainly in the moonlight he saw two 
dark figures at work down at the cooter-pen. 
They were bending over, as if wrenching off 
boards. 

The watchman knew well enough what they 
were after, and the amount of damage they 
might do. Ned Alston had more than a thou- 
sand dollars' worth of diamond-backs In the 
pen; and some of the best of these the men 
might steal. If they left a board off, the whole 
penful might escape. Such a thing had been 
done before. 

"You, dar!" shouted Galboa, and his shout 
was followed by the heavy report of the old 
musket. The men crouched low and scuttled 
away over the sandy beach, and were soon hid- 
den in the woods beyond. 

Mumbling to himself, Galboa came out into 
the moonlight; then, fumbling under the joists, 
he sought in the darkness for his hammer and 
nails. They were gone. 



The Strategy of Galhoa 147 

"Dey done steal my 'couterments, too," was 
Galboa's comment. "And now dey is gwine 
try to larcenlfy Mas' Ned's terrapin." 

He crossed the beach and came to where 
the men had been working. He found, upon 
inspecting the damage, that they had done no 
great harm. The end of one board had been 
loosened; but this Galboa nailed into place 
with a brick that he found near the pen. Then 
he looked about for the hatchet and nails, but 
he could find neither. 

"Dat is a tarrigation fo' sho," he said to 
himself. "Dey done steal my driver and my 
pinions, too. Well," he added with finality, 
"dey won't get these terrapin, dat's sho." 

With a last look about him, old Galboa made 
his way slowly back to his cabin. The first 
thing he did was to reload his musket; and for 
the benefit of any who might be interested 
spectators of the proceeding, he did this in the 
full moonlight before his cabin. And he not 
only added some extra powder and shot, but 
for some time he stood there drawing imag- 
inary sights on all objects in view. He felt 
that his movements were being watched, and 
he wanted to show that he was eager for an- 
other encounter. At length he stepped into his 
shack for the precious box of percussion caps 



148 Old Plantation Days 

that he always kept on a shelf above the bare 
table on which he ate his meals. But for the 
metal box in its familiar place, old Galboa felt 
in vain. His gnarled hand fumbled along the 
rough board, but encountered nothing more 
than an ancient black bottle containing lini- 
ment for his rheumatism. Without caps, his 
musket was useless; and without his musket in 
a condition of efficiency, Galboa was helpless. 

Slowly to his awakening wits came the pos- 
sibiHty of what had been done: the men who 
were trying to rob the pen must be friends, 
who, on visits to the cabin, had learned where 
he kept the caps. They also had, in some way, 
discovered the hiding-place of the hatchet and 
nails. Galboa knew that the caps had been in 
place before he had dozed off. He now felt 
almost certain that while he had been repairing 
the pen, the marauders had slipped around 
through the woods to his cabin, then, under 
cover of the adjacent myrtle thickets, had made 
off with the box of caps. It meant that they 
had put Galboa's only weapon out of use. It 
also meant that the men were not through with 
their night's work. 

The old man scratched his head and thought 
deeply. He was too far away to hope for help 
from Ned Alston or any one else. It was night 



The Strategy of Galhoa 149 

on one of the loneliest stretches of a lonely 
coast. 

"I know," said the negro at length, as if try- 
ing sincerely to set in array the hard facts that 
he had to face, "dat somebody is gwine to steal 
dem cooter to-night. I is here to guard 'em. 
Dey must kill me," he added gravely to him- 
self, "befo' dey get Mas' Ned's terrapin." 

Then a new thought came to Galboa's mind. 

*'I wonder, now," he asked himself, "if dem 
two boys, Halfhand and Nuttin," speaking of 
his two worthless grandchildren, whose mother, 
chagrined at their unprepossessing appearance 
when they were born, had named them Half- 
hand and Nothing, "ain't jest trying to scare 
me? It might be," he added, but the hope in 
his head that this was the true purpose of his 
midnight visitors was faint indeed. Yet he de- 
termined to proceed on that understanding of 
the matter. 

"Jest wait," he said softly; "dey don't know 
ole Galboa; no, sah, dey don't." 

With endless memories thronging upon him 
of the failings of his two lazy and mischievous 
grandchildren, who were now grown men, Gal- 
boa began his preparations for the encounter. 
He brought in the musket which had been lean- 
ing against the door-beam. Then he pulled 



150 Old Plantation Days 

from under his cot a spacious box, in which he 
had an extraordinary assortment of objects. 
One of these was a full-sized scarecrow, that 
Galboa had used earlier in the summer to keep 
away the crows and grackles from the little 
corn patch which he had tried to cultivate. He 
chuckled to himself as he brought forth this 
object. Sitting on the edge of the cot, Galboa 
began to make the figure look like himself; 
and, to tell the truth, this was no difficult task. 
He stretched his coat on its stiff arms, bending 
them down against its straw sides. He put 
his battered hat on its head. Then, placing a 
box on top of his wooden bench, he set the 
scarecrow on it, and then drew the whole machi- 
nation over to the window. And there sat old 
Galboa, solemn and watchful, looking protect- 
ingly down on the pen of terrapins. 

But his work was only half done. At the 
bottom of the box, carefully wrapped in news- 
paper, Galboa kept a cherished pair of sheets. 
Long before, a planter's kind-hearted wife, 
pitying the old negro's desolate quarters, had 
given him the rather odd present. But Galboa 
had always considered them far too precious 
to use, save, perhaps, in the event of his own 
funeral. 

One of these sheets he now took out and, 



The Strategy of Galhoa 151 

tucking it under his arm, he stole stealthily out 
of the shack, going by way of the back door, 
that exit being shielded by a heavy growth of 
myrtle bushes from the view of those who 
might be at the cooter-pen or beyond it. 

Behind these myrtles Galboa stood quietly 
until, as he had expected, he saw two shadowy 
figures emerge from the woods across the 
marsh-flats. Then Galboa took a wide circle 
through the dark paths under the beach-cedars. 
At last he came to the edge of the woods oppo- 
site his cabin; and from that point he saw, with 
pleasurable satisfaction, his own watchful coun- 
tenance looking out of his window. 

"It sho' do look like me," said Galboa, nod- 
ding his head with approval. 

From his place of concealment, Galboa could 
see the men down at the cooter-pen, a hundred 
yards away. They were talking as they pried 
and worked with the wet boards that were diffi- 
cult to start because the wood had swelled 
about the nails. In his clump of dense myrtles, 
Galboa shook out his sheet and put it over his 
head. Then, having torn two small eyeholes, 
he was ready for the encounter. 

Through the tall sedge-grass and over the 
smooth beach in the moonlight he advanced 
silently. Truly he made a fearsome specter, 



152 Old Plantation Days 

his great height enhancing the grim and ghostly 
effect of his presence. There he stood, tall and 
silent: not the Headless Horseman or the 
Ghost of Hamlet's father could have been 
more awe-inspiring. 

The two men, busily at work under the 
shadow of the cooter-pen, did not see the weird 
figure. Indeed, they had no fear of any one 
approaching from that direction. They were 
much employed with their task; and as they 
pulled and pushed and strained with the boards, 
they took gleeful occasion to comment on the 
character and attainments of their grandfather, 
Galboa. They were not only there to steal, 
but also to make an old and infirm relative mis- 
erable. 

*'Look at dat ole owl a-settin' up in dat win- 
dow," said Halfhand. "Since he can't find 
dem gun-caps, he is afeared to come out." 

"Dat ole grandpa is skeered of us," said 
Nothing, wMth a chuckle. "Dat ole thing am 
no account to watch a cooter-pen. Some o' 
dese nights a Hiddle Diddle Dee is gwine to 
fly away with 'im." 

Once more they indulged in chuckles at Gal- 
boa's expense. But they had unaware given 
Galboa the cue for his next move. They had 
mentioned the Hiddle Diddle Dee. And of 



The Strategy of Galhoa 153 

all weird spirits that haunt the woods and fields 
at night, the negroes fear most the great horned 
owl, which they call by that strange appella- 
tion. In this name they gather all those freez- 
ing horrors that are found in darkness, in soli- 
tude, and in lonely woodlands, in spectral fields, 
and in forbidding swamps. 

And now, from a point not far behind the 
two negroes, there floated out on the still night 
air the soft and melancholy notes of a great 
horned owl: "toot-a-loot, toot-a-loot, toot." 

"Wah dat?" ejaculated Halfhand and Noth- 
ing in a breath, unconsciously huddling together. 
Again the weird notes sounded, and the culprits 
turned toward where the tall, white specter 
stood. 

For a moment they were speechless with 
terror. Nothing could be more imposing than 
Galboa as a ghost. Soon the fears of the two 
wretched men became articulate. Dropping 
their tools, they went down on their knees In 
the mud, groveling and praying to the sinister 
figure. 

"O do. Pastor!" pleaded one passionately, 
"we didn't mean no wrong! We will never 
worry old Galboa no mo' ! O do please, Boss- 
man ! We wouldn't bother Mas' Ned's terra- 
pin again. Oh!" 



154 Old Plantation Days 

The only answer that the specter vouchsafed 
was a peculiarly remote, haunting, and melan- 
choly, "toot-a-loot, toot-a-loot, toot." 

At that terrifying answer, the negroes broke 
and fled. One dropped his hat, but he gave it 
no thought. They screamed and waved their 
arms as they ran, following the line of the 
beach as it wound away toward the salt 
marshes. Far down the moonlit track old Gal- 
boa watched them go. Then he took off the 
sheet, folded it carefully, put it under his arm, 
and walked down to the cooter-pen. There 
he repaired the slight damage that had been 
wrought. After some searching, he found the 
hatchet and the box of percussion caps. 

Galboa returned to his shack highly satis- 
fied, for he knew he would have no more vis- 
itors that night. 

Two days later he had a visit from Half- 
hand and Nothing. After a good deal of des- 
ultory talk, one of them approached the sub- 
ject that was haunting him. 

"Pa Galboa," he asked, "ain't you afraid to 
stay in dis 'ere lonesome place all by yo'self ?" 

With deep, inscrutable eyes old Galboa 
looked out across the beach. 

"Why should I be 'fraid?" he asked specu- 
latively in his quiet voice. "I neber do nobody 



The Strategy of Galboa 155 

no wrong. I don't lie, and I don't steal." 

"But ain't you skeered o' dem Hiddle Diddle 
Dee?" broke in Nothing excitedly. 

"They and I are friends," responded Gal- 
boa thoughtfully. "And sometimes," he added 
significantly, "they come down out o' yonder 
woods and help me guard this cooter-pen." 

Soon after, when Halfhand and Nothing 
took their departure, it was near twilight. 
And as they passed along the lonely beach, 
they quickened their pace, and cast many a 
furtive look behind. 

Galboa and Ned Alston have had many a 
hearty laugh over Galboa's strategy; and they 
are the only ones who understand why neither 
Halfhand or Nothing can be induced to leave 
his cabin after dark. 



XIV 

THE ROMNEY SPECTER 

ROMNEY, the rice plantation on the 
Santee River just below old Colonel 
Jocelyn's estate, had been deserted 
for many years. The family which had orig- 
inally owned it had died out; and the distant 
relatives who inherited the place had never 
visited it, and did not seem to care for the fine 
old home or the broad acres surrounding it. 
The inevitable followed. In a few years Rom- 
ney was little more than a picturesque ruin. 
There were the wide upland fields, overgrown 
with broomgrass and scrub-pines; there was the 
stately avenue of magnolias which led from the 
silence of the great pine forest to the silence 
of the desolate home. The giant live-oaks 
surrounding the house, shrouded in gray moss 
that sighed in the wind, seemed fit sentinels to 
watch for those who would come no more. 
The long piazzas had fallen in, and the hag- 
gard windows looked wild. In the forsaken 
garden a lone and lovely red rose completed 
the ruin of the place. By day a white sun- 

156 



The Momney Specter 157 

shiny silence drenched the scene; by night Rom- 
ney became the home of prowlers, going abroad 
under the stars to seek their meat from God. 



The ruins were not old enough to deserve 
study, yet sufficiently old to inspire wonder and 
awe. No fire or storfti had dismantled the 
h'ouse, only the long years of disuse and deser- 
tion had crumbled it and had given its gray 
walls to decay. The weeds and the low bushes 
grew up to the very doors (the lonely open 
doors!), and tall grass waved out of the stained 
cracks in the marble steps. Some sweet shrubs 
thrust their brown arms through the vacant 
window frames, as if appealing in behalf of 
the forlorn old home. The roof had fallen in 
places, giving a glimpse of molding walls and 
rotting beams. Indeed, Romney House was a 
most unhappy sight, and one which the people 
of that isolated region avoided whenever pos- 
sible. 

So Romney was deserted. But there were 
those who hinted darkly that the whole estate 
was steeped in mystery, and that Its loneliness 
was kept inviolate by a Presence that was 
neither animal nor human. There were many 
who believed, and who were not ashamed to 
let their fears be known, that it was not safe to 



158 Old Plantation Days 

pass Romney House by night. If asked the 
cause of their fear they would only shake their 
heads as if unwilling to commit themselves on 
a matter involving the supernatural. Still, as 
the road leading by the danger-point joined two 
thriving rice plantations, there were of neces- 
sity many who dared to take the risk. But 
as time passed", what had seemed at first to be 
but rumor and superstitious fear, began to take 
on more serious* proportions. Old and respec- 
table negroes, whose courage could not be 
doubted, told soberly of a shadowy form that 
had been seen standing in the tall gray grass 
near the ruined house; and one had seen it by 
moonlight in the open road, — a spectral shape 
that melted out of sight at his approach. The 
burden of most of the stories was to the effect 
frhat the Specter seldom moved; it stood, 
shielded by the high grass, and watched the 
intruder. In no case had any one approached 
it purposely. The Specter gave no chase, ut- 
tered no sound, made no movement; it merely 
watched silently from its semi-concealment. 
And those who thought that they had seen it 
said that its eyes were still, awful, and ma- 
lignant, like the eyes of an evil spirit. 

One night, a negro who was a stranger in 
that region and who did not, therefore, know 



The Romney Specter 159 

of the Romney Specter, came upon the old 
house when he was very weary and lay down 
upon the rotting porch to rest. There he fell 
asleep. An approaching thunder-storm awak- 
ened him, and he stepped off the piazza toward 
one of the great oaks. There would be little 
shelter afforded by the house, for the wild and 
threatening sky was darkly visible through the 
rents in the fallen roof. Rounding the corner 
of the house suddenly, he was overpowered by 
a sickening odor, and a huge form rushed past 
him, tripped him, and slashing him with some 
weapon disastrously sharp, plunged on under 
cover of the night and the gathering storm. 

When the unfortunate negro told his incred- 
ible story and showed his cruel wound at the 
plantation settlement next morning, many of 
his listeners, while fascinated by the mystery, 
disbelieved him. Yet some were prevailed 
upon to visit the place; and there, as the Spec- 
ter's victim said there would be, were blood 
and the signs of a bitter struggle. But there 
were no tracks visible in the tall grass; in fact 
no one searched minutely; for spirits are not 
known to leave trails. 

This incident started the old rumors anew, 
and soon the story of the malignant Specter 
of Romney spread over half of the county. 



160 Old Plantation Days 

But no organized search was made for the mon- 
ster. Once a white hunter from one of the 
nearby swamps passed through Romney on a 
quail hunt. At dusk he came unexpectedly 
upon the great moldering house in its silent 
grove of gigantic oaks. He walked around 
the melancholy structure, thinking that he 
might get a shot at a barred-owl, for they haunt 
such places. Suddenly, from the other side of 
the house, he heard his setter give a startled 
bark, and then a pitiful yelp. Running in the 
direction of the sound, he almost fell over his 
poor dog that was lying in a little open space. 
The man stooped down and examined the un- 
fortunate creature. There was a ghastly 
wound in its throat and another in its side, 
either one fatal. Rising, the man looked about 
him; and from the tall yellow grass near the 
yawning black door of the cellar, he fancied 
that he saw a gray and ghostly shape gazing at 
him steadily. Now, the hunter was a very 
young man; also — for the truth must be told — 
he was a coward. With one frightened glance 
at the murdered setter, and another at the dread 
Specter that he saw there, or that he fancied 
he saw there, he broke away and fled from that 
sinister old ruin. 

Of course this story was soon abroad; but as 



The Romney Specter 161 

no one gave it credence except the negroes, 
and as they did not care about investigating, 
it only served to swell the rumors concerning 
the Specter and to give them a more fatal 
tinge. 

But a month after the hunter's adventure, 
there occurred the only real tragedy that that 
quiet old plantation region had l^nown in a 
generation. Two little negroes from Colonel 
Jocelyn's place had been down the river to 
take some provisions to their father who was 
working on ricefield trunk-docks. The elder 
was a girl of ten and the younger a boy of five. 
As they came by Romney House late in the 
afternoon, they were very tired. To them 
the Specter had assumed no very definite as- 
pect or location. They had heard of it, of 
course; but they feared it in any dark or lonely 
place. The late afternoon sun fell with soft 
silver light on the ruin, and the place did not 
look haunted. So the children rested there 
awhile. Then a playful mood overtook them, 
and they began to play little games, hiding be- 
hind the big oaks and chasing each other around 
the angles of the house. Once the little boy 
stumbled against the rotted doorway of the 
cellar and fell across the black aperture. In 
a second a great gaunt form rushed upward, 



162 Old Plantation Days 

tossed the boy high, and sped swiftly into the 
rank grass. The sister had but time to catch 
a fleeting glimpse of the Specter, and even so 
she was not sure that she had seen anything; 
for it was dusk, and her shocked eyes had been 
on her brother. When she brought him home 
in her arms, toihng through the dark, she was 
stupefied and speechless from fright and ex- 
haustion. Her story was incoherent; but there 
was that which was dreadfully plain: there on 
the dead body of the little negro were the same 
cruel wounds that the Romney Specter was 
known to give. Then, indeed, did the sad 
story flash from plantation to plantation, and 
the name of Romney was on every lip. 

Now, there was at least one negro along the 
river who had no fear of any Specter, what- 
ever that might be. He was the hunter Scipio. 
He was a tall and powerful specimen of the 
black man, and, in spite of his marauding prac- 
tices, was a general favorite among all the 
plantation-owners. The stories that had come 
to him up to this time of the so-called Romney 
Specter had not interested him. He was a 
hardworking negro, and he had no spare time 
to frighten himself. He had no leisure to 
spend on speculating about ghosts. All that 
he knew or cared to know about Romney was 



The Romney Specter 163 

that he had long since caught the best raccoons 
there, and that it was a poor place for the kind 
of game that he wanted. This indifferent atti- 
tude continued until the little boy lost his life. 
But at the occurrence of this unhappy incident 
Scipio awoke to the possibilities of Romney. 
Doubtless, he thought, some one would now 
put a bounty on the Specter. And in this he 
was not mistaken; for, ill as the poor old gen- 
tleman could afford it. Colonel Jocelyn, the 
morning after the tragedy, offered a reward of 
ten dollars to the man who would bring to him 
the Romney Specter, dead or alive. Such a 
price was more than Scipio would get for a 
dozen 'coon skins ; and he seemed to be the only 
man eager to take the chances that the solution 
of such a problem was sure to occasion. 

Scipio's unconcern over the matter of his own 
personal safety showed Itself in the alacrity with 
which he made preparations to meet the Spec- 
ter. At noon on the day when the bounty was 
offered, he washed out his old musket and 
loaded it carefully. Twenty double-sized buck- 
shot did he ram on top of the four drams of 
coarse black powder, and the nipple he primed 
with great exactness and deliberation. Scipio 
did not know what he might have to face; and 
the more he thought of it, the more he won- 



164 Old Plantaiion Days 

dered. He thought that it must be a wild- 
cat, and a very large and treacherous one at 
that. Yet the wounds on the two negroes had 
been very long and deep, Scipio could not tell; 
so he took no chances. 

Before sunset he took his stand at Romney 
House. The Specter had been reported seen 
only at twilight and after, and in the night 
Scipio was determined to meet him. He was 
so used to hunting at all hours that he did not 
mind the darkness; but he debated a long while 
as to where he should stand. He wanted to 
be off the ground, and he wanted to watch the 
shattered piazza and the gloomy cellar-door. 
The Specter would be reasonably sure to prowl 
near one of those places. If he sat in the low 
fork of the nearest live-oak, he would not be 
able to see the piazza distinctly; and if he had 
occasion to use his musket he would have to 
shoot through the foliage at the end of the 
limb. If he sat on the porch itself he might 
be taken unaware, and in a crisis there are few 
things worse than that. He did not know but 
that the sinister creature might drop on him 
from the disastrous roof. There was but one 
real chance, — to hide himself in the tall broom- 
grass in front of the cellar-door and there await 
the coming of the Specter. 



The Romney Specter 165 

Trampling a little space in the broomgrass, 
leaving a thin fringe in front of him, beyond 
which, twenty feet away, were the ruined porch 
and the haunted cellar-door, Scipio made him- 
self comfortable — as much so as was possible 
under the conditions. But he was far more 
at his ease than most men would have been. 
And he was ready; for he was always ready 
when, as now, his musket lay cocked across his 
knees. 

The winter's twilight came softly and with a 
gentle presence that pervaded all things. 
There were those vague sounds which attend 
the going to sleep of one half of the world 
and the awakening of the other. Over the 
river, a few hundred yards behind Scipio, a 
string of mallards bent and turned in their 
beautiful swift flight up to some favorite field. 
The white-breasted sparrows called with shrill 
urchin insistence from their dense green castles 
of smilax that crested the cassina trees. The 
barred-owls in the nearby oaks and in the giant 
cypresses along the river began their garrulous 
hooting and screaming. A sly raccoon paced 
stealthily down the path by Scipio, his nose 
twitching and his cars alert. A cotton-tail 
rabbit ran out into the pathway, sat on his 
haunches, washed his face with his paws, cut 



166 Old Plantation Days 

a few ghostly capers, and then scampered si- 
lently away. A gray fox barked once from the 
old negro burying-ground, his harsh and men- 
acing voice rasping on the gentle night. Then 
came the deeper darkness; and with it came 
silence, and the velvet swoons and trances of 
the stars. 

Scipio glanced down his musket-barrel and 
saw there the friendly gleam of the brass sight. 
That was the sign of light sufficient to enable 
him to shoot with accuracy. He hoped that 
the night-mist would not rise and that the dark 
wall of clouds to the southwest would stay 
there. He trusted himself not to fall asleep. 
He felt that this was nothing like hunting 
'coons, like waiting in a thicket for a deer, or 
like stalking a roosted turkey after night. Not 
even Scipio knew just what it would be like. 
He wanted to take off the percussion cap and 
examine the priming of his musket; but he was 
afraid to do so. The Specter might even now 
be watching him, he thought. So he just 
gripped his gun the tighter and waited quietly. 

He had been on his stand two hours before 
he heard any suspicious sound. But then, clear 
above the dreamy sighing of the night-breeze 
through the waving banners of Spanish moss, 
he heard the soft crunching footsteps of some 



The Bomney Specter 167 

creature, the sound apparently coming from 
the cellar. And when he heard that sinister 
approach, for the very first time in Scipio's life 
an icy chill of genuine fear crept up Scipio's 
spine. The Specter was no wild cat; that he 
knew. The beast had hoofs! What if it 
were really an evil spirit and not liable to mor- 
tal death? What If he were really stalking 
a ghost, what if all the dread stories told about 
the Romney Specter were true? But Scipio 
was a brave man, and his determination did 
not waver. His faith in his musket was won- 
derful. Getting down softly on one knee he 
made a rest for his gun with his hand, and so 
leveled the sight against the black opening of 
the haunted cellar. Ere he heard another 
sound, there came to him, wafted on a stray 
wind of the night, a raw odor, tangy and wild. 
Then a great gray shape, silent and ghoulish, 
suddenly filled the doorway of the cellar. It 
was the Romney Specter. 

He was a huge beast as he stood there In 
the pale starlight, facing the crouching negro. 
He was as tall as a calf, with peculiar body and 
legs and a monstrous head. He looked like 
Malignity. His color was gray, flecked here 
and there with shaggy black hair. His back 
arched like a hyena's, and on its ridge the rank 



168 Old Plantation Days 

bristles were thin and stiff. His forelegs were 
longer than the hind and tapered more. His 
neck was thick and creased, with spiky hair 
growing in blotches. His head was a horror. 
There were the cunning and alertly-pointed 
ears; the wicked glittering eyes, fiery red, yet 
cold; the dread widening of the jaws toward 
the nose; the loathsome nostrils and snout, and 
the white terror of the long gleaming tusks 
that arched gracefully out of the dreadful 
mouth. He seemed to radiate foul cruelty and 
eager brutality. 

Scipio waited for the monster to turn. If he 
shot at the Specter facing, only a few scatter- 
ing buckshot might lodge in him; and the negro 
must make very sure. But the creature would 
not turn. ' He stood warily, his nostrils widen- 
ing. Now he stepped a pace forward, his head 
high in the wind. And then, to Scipio's horror, 
out of the dim unfathomed night he heard a 
weird voice call him, "Scipio! Scipio!" 

Thrillingly, without sign of warning, the 
great Romney Specter plunged headlong for 
the negro. Scipio pulled down on the trigger 
and sprang aside. But the whirl of the brute's 
head and the rip of the curving tusks caught 
him in the leg and bared the bone. Close on 
the charge of the Specter came a hurrying hu- 



The Romney Specter 169 

man figure; it was Pino, Scipio's brother, who 
had followed, fearing for the hunter's safety, 
and it was he who had called out of the dark- 
ness. And now he bent over Scipio and began 
to bind his wound. 

But there was no further charge from the 
creature that had so long and so cruelly haunted 
Romney. For with a sullen groan, the great 
wild boar sank back on his haunches, fell over 
on his side, and was dead. 

And so was buried the fear of the Romney 
Specter. And to this day men are shown the 
grass tussocks behind which the negro hunter 
crouched; and one of the most cherished troph- 
ies in Scipio's cabin is the huge pair of snowy 
tusks that once menaced his life. 



XV 

THE LONE BULL OF MAYBANK 

COUNTLESS white bubbles rose to the 
surface of the dark swamp water. 
The lily-pads, anchored by their long 
black stems, were sliding softly here and there 
on the surface, moved from the depths of the 
morass by some invisible power. Gently 
among the bubbles there then appeared what 
looked like a walnut, floating on the water. 
Higher it rose, growing wider, more irregular. 
Dimly two great eyes in protruding sockets 
cleared the level of the water. Next, the huge 
armored body of a bull alligator appeared, 
monstrous and scaly, looking like a dragon of 
medieval tapestry. With his body half-sub- 
merged and his wicked head thrust partly up 
on a spongy grass tussock, he lay still in the 
mellow sunshine, hideously contented. 

A gray squirrel, with tail arched divinely, 
barked at him from a cool retreat among the 
tender leaves of a sweet-gum. A foolish blue 
jay, that had been inspecting a pine sapling 

170 



The hone Bull of Mayhank 171 

growing on the edge of the morass, peered im- 
pudently at him, scolded him harshly, but sud- 
denly grew afraid, and flew screaming away. 
The blue and green dragon-flies, that could 
poise so jauntily on the sere reed tops, whisked 
daringly over the drowsing alligator, flared in 
glittering circles above him, and returned with 
defiant grace to their perches. 

Far up in the blue profound of the noonday 
sky a solitary osprey, which had a nest on the 
crest of the dead cypress that stood out of the 
water, gazed down arrogantly on the lord of 
the morass; for to the enormous old alligator, 
cruel, cunning and powerful, the community of 
wild life in that vicinity paid the bitter tribute 
of a fearful respect. And this realm of the 
mighty monarch was a kingdom worth ruling. 

The lonely morass was on Maybank Planta- 
tion, one of the vast rice estates of the old 
South. For half a century the plantation had 
been deserted, and nature had long since com- 
pleted her gracious work of covering the un- 
happy ruins that showed the trail of man. 

For a mile through the pine forest the black 
channel of the swamp wound a tortuous and 
sluggish course, having a trickling, weed- 
choked outlet into the river. On each side of 



172 Old Plantation Days 

the narrow channel were water-lily beds, marsh 
tufts, clumps of buck-cypresses and fringes of 
green and yellow duck oats. Beyond these 
was a growth of young canes, dense and rus- 
tling; and still beyond, the level brown floors 
of the pine wood swept gently upward and 
away. 

There had been a time when the swamp had 
swarmed with alligators, when the great bulls 
had challenged each other from end to end 
of the dark channel, when the marsh-beds held 
many an armored giant, thawing out the chill 
of winter in the sweet spring sun. But those 
days, as the days of the plantation itself, had 
passed. 

Some of the alligators had been killed by 
wandering negro hunters. During the heat 
and drought of long summers others had 
crawled off toward the river in search of fresher 
water, and had never come back. One by one 
they had passed, one by one. Only the great 
bull, the most ancient and powerful of them 
all, remained. 

His deep den under the wide-spreading roots 
of the osprcy-haunted cypress held the source 
of a spring, so that his water-supply was al- 
ways fresh. . His wariness kept him clear of 



The Lone Bull of Mayhanh 173 

the few lone hunters who occasionally pene- 
trated those deserted wilds. 

As the other alligators left, the problem of 
his own support became easy for the great alli- 
gator. Cruel and slothful was the life that 
he led. He ruled the swamp, even to its most 
remote recesses, with a vicious Invincible power. 
Heavy toll he took of the sportive trout that 
silvered like flashes of sunlight the dark wa- 
ters of the lagoon; of the gentle and beautiful 
wood-ducks that built their nests on the low- 
swinging cypress limbs that brushed the water, 
trying to rear their fuzzy broods on the re- 
tired edges of the tyrant's kingdom; of the 
tall white egrets, graceful and mild; of the 
gaunt blue herons that stood In motionless, mel- 
ancholy ambush, waiting for a chance to pierce 
or to seize a fish with their javelin beaks; of 
the wild hogs that rooted on the boggy shores; 
of the eager hunting-dogs that swam the deep 
water; of all creatures that came to the haunted 
morass to drink. 

But on this balmy July day, when the mon- 
arch with more than usual arrogance viewed 
his rich domain, moving with indolent strength 
and assurance among the broad lily-pads, there 
floated to his nostrils a strange and fascinating 



171 Old Plantation Days 

odor, musky and penetrating. The nostrils 
widened until their black pits shone red, the 
cold, protruding eyes gleamed, and the huge 
body grew suddenly tense and eager. Deter- 
mining the direction from which the scent came, 
the lone bull, almost without a ripple, sank from 
sight, rising a few seconds later forty yards 
nearer the shore. Here he lay under some 
sheltering grass, watching and waiting. 

With soft-lunging, padding strides, a brown 
bear with her little cub, all roly-poly, roguish 
and playful, came down the pine-scented, 
flower-bordered wood-path toward the lagoon. 
The old bear had never been this way before, 
and she was wary; but the rich beauty and 
peace of the surrounding swamp, and the gleam 
of water through the trees, and the cool, deli- 
cious aroma of blueberries growing somewhere 
near made her forget her usual caution and 
cunning. 

The cub, while not equally impressed by 
the promises of things material, was still equally 
unsuspicious and perfectly happy. Once or 
twice when the big bear grunted her affection 
to him, he answered with a droll squeak of 
merriment and abandon. He imitated ab- 
surdly his mother's rolling gait. To him the 



The Lone Bull of Mayhank 175 

whole world was a beautiful playhouse, made 
especially for cubs of his age. 

Soon the mother came to a high swamp- 
blueberry bush, and rearing up, drew the droop- 
ing limbs, laden with their misty-purple fruit, 
eagerly toward her, and crushed the sweet, 
succulent berries with grunts of satisfied desire. 

The cub essayed to follow his mother's ex- 
ample; but the first time he stood up he lost 
his balance and fell over backward, landing 
with much amazement but with no injury in 
a heavy tuft of grass. He rolled over on his 
side, too lazy for immediate exertion, and gazed 
with the lambent eyes of indolent admiration 
at his mother, who was stripping the last 
branch of its fragrant burden. 

The cub swung his feet drowsily back and 
forth In the air, wondering mildly at his own 
dexterity. Meanwhile the old bear, with a sat- 
isfied rumble, dropped down on her four feet, 
turned ponderously about, looked at her baby 
with huge affection, nuzzled him about the 
sunny grass until he stood up, and then lunged 
on down the llght-and-shade checkered path- 
way toward the shining water. 

Passing a growth of slim cypresses, they 
came to the rustling cane-brake, like a fringe 



176 Old Plantation Days 

to the lagoon. The old bear pushed her way 
through this until her head and shoulders were 
clear of the canes on the other side. Then 
she stopped, sniffed the air, and listened. Close 
behind her, greatly excited because the tips of 
his furry feet were in the water, the cub palpi- 
tated, wondering what this move might mean. 

The morass was unknown to the mother, 
and for that very reason she was apprehen- 
sive. But as she listened, she heard nothing 
to justify her suspicions. The blue sky bent 
sweetly over them; the gray moss, pendent from 
every tree, waved silently in the aromatic 
breeze; two wood-ducks of gorgeous plumage 
floated peacefully far out on the bosom of the 
channel. An amiable old bullfrog, seated on 
a half-submerged mossy tussock, eyed the bears 
with the air of a kindly patriarch. A gray 
sapsucker was following, upside down, the ex- 
citing promise of a dead cypress limb. 

Still, the mother bear hesitated a long time 
before she waded into the morass; but some 
green alligator acorns and some silvery wampee 
leaves lured her clear of the cane-brake. There 
she began to feed, and there finally she lay 
down on the quaking turf to wallow. The cub 
followed manfully, although he kept on a dry 
ridge of turf that extended out to the channel. 



The Lone Bull of Mayhank 177 

He was about ten feet away from his mother. 
Twenty feet away, with just his eyes and the 
point of his nose showing above the water, the 
Maybank bull marked his prey. 

The lone alligator was intent on a kill. The 
musky smell of the bears had stirred his slug- 
gish heart to a dull fever of desire. The tiny 
brain deep in the monstrous head was aflame 
with eagerness for blood. His cold, glassy 
eyes gazed with unwinking speculation at his 
intended victims. He noticed the old bear's 
apparent forgetfulness and peace, and the cub's 
separation from her. Just at that moment the 
little fellow was trying in vain to make a play- 
mate of a droll stolid terrapin, half-grown, 
that was trying to pretend that he was really 
nothing at all. 

Measuring the distance and singling the cub 
as his victim, the alligator withdrew silently 
beneath the black waters. A moment later his 
eyes rose ever so gently out of the grass-grown 
lagoon, not six feet from the innocent little 
bear, which was then slapping playfully at the 
gaudy dragon-flies as they flirted past him. 
His mother, although watching him now, was 
still some distance away, wallowing in the weedy 
water. 

Stealthily, and under the ambush of the glis- 



178 Old Plantation Days 

tening wampee leaves, the lone bull drew closer. 
As he swam softly, he turned so as to give his 
mighty tail the opportunity to sweep the cub 
into his crushing jaws. Inch by tragic inch 
he drew near, leaving but a tiny oily ripple in 
the water behind him. 

There was a short rush, a lunge; the flashing 
whirl of a mighty tail as of some broad, black 
scimitar, a terrified squeal from the cub, a 
furious snort and plunge from the mother. 
The lone bull's tail had grazed the cub, tum- 
bling him, stunned, into the water; the mother 
was struggling wildly but vainly in the sucking 
mud; the red mouth of the great alligator, 
terrible with tusks, was already open to seize 
the victim, lying only a foot away. 

But then, far from the opposite bank of the 
lagoon, there came the clear, sharp crack of a 
rifle, and a white tuft of smoke floated up from 
the cane-brake. 

In a moment the scene was vividly changed. 
The old bear, working free of the morass, had 
reached the cub and stood defiantly over it, her 
great sides heaving in the fierce agony of ma- 
ternal fear. Almost within reach of her paw, 
turning in slow, blind, painful circles, with a 
heavy bullet in his brain, was the lone bull of 
Maybank, helpless, shattered, dying; and his 









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The Lone Bull of Mayhank 179 

dark blood stained the stagnant waters that 
he had so long and so cruelly haunted. 

Across the lagoon, standing on a fallen log, 
an old hunter watched this second scene of the 
tragedy; and even as he watched, the third and 
last scene was enacted before his eyes. He 
saw the cub, nuzzled by his fierce old mother, 
stir feebly; and then the great bear sat back on 
her haunches, took the cub in her huge, soft 
arms, rose on her hind legs, and stalked growl- 
ing out of the morass, disappearing in the pur- 
ple twilight of the pines. 

The hunter could have shot her easily, but 
being a sportsman and a gentleman, he let the 
brave old creature carry her baby away in 
safety. The bull alligator ceased moving, 
quivered through all his frame, turned slowly 
over and lay still. And the hunter stepped 
down from the log and started for his far-off 
camp. 

Then over the great swamp there fell a si- 
lence, and such a silence as it had not known 
in many a year. 

For it was a silence that would never be 
broken by the hollow, terrible roar of the lone 
bull or the pitiful cries of his victims; but only 
by the melodious winds choiring through the 
mighty pines and the songs of happy birds. 



XVI 

THE TOKEN FLOOD 

THE late October rains had been so in- 
sistent that, for at least a week, Ned 
Alston had not sent for the mail; con- 
sequently he missed the warning in the news- 
papers of the coming of the great flood. A 
certain height of water in the Santee at St. 
Stephens, Columbia, and Camden always in- 
dicated, three or four days ahead, that the 
river would reach freshet proportions in the 
delta country. Until now, the master of Eldo- 
rado had always been warned in time; and 
there had never been a time when he had been 
in more dire need of warning. 

It was Primus who brought the word. Pie 
explained, in his quaint gullah, that he had 
just come up the river in a dugout canoe; that 
there were great logs, the like of which he had 
never seen, drifting on the vanward waters of 
the flood; that the eddies everywhere were 
choked with trash and foam; and that he had 
seen great clouds of wild-ducks leaving the 
lower delta for the safety of the gray cypress 

swamps high up the river. 
180 



Tlie Token Flood 181 

"A freshet, eh, Primus?" Alston said, while 
he made the negro stand near the blazing fire 
in the big hearth of the plantation kitchen and 
dry out his clothes, telling Amy, the cook, to 
get him a cup of hot coffee; "well, I'm glad 
you came by the house to let me know. So 
you think it will be a big water. Primus?" 

The tall negro paused a moment so that his 
words would have the proper oracular effect. 

"Mas' Ned," he replied soberly, "dis is 
gwine be de Token Flood." 

While not taking much stock in negro su- 
perstitions, Alston seldom disregarded them, 
for they frequently contained an element of 
valuable truth; and so near to the negro's heart 
that he would never utter it save under the 
strong impulse of deep feeling. 

"The Token Flood," the planter now re- 
peated gravely; "that sounds serious. Primus. 
Do you think there will be any danger to the 
Pine Ridge on the Island?" 

"Cap'n," the big negro replied prophetically, 
shaking his head slowly with an import of omi- 
nous things, " if dis is de Token Flood, dis 
Great House will be de only dry place on Eldo- 
rado." 

Alston stepped to the window and looked 
out thoughtfully on the rainy twilight; on the 



182 Old Plantation Days 

hurrying masses of gray and black clouds, and 
on the bare and lonely boughs that swayed si- 
lently against the wind. Primus, he thought, 
had just come in out of the weather; he had 
been alone; and the size of the river, vast and 
indistinct in the rain, had overawed him. Yet, 
as the master of Eldorado stood gazing out 
on the forbidding dusk, he could not escape a 
shiver as premonitions of disaster thronged 
upon him. 

There was much in such a flood that any 
planter on the delta might lose; but at this 
particular time of the year, Alston might lose 
well-nigh everything. All his cattle and hogs 
were still on their summer pasture on the 
Island; even the flock of goats was across the 
river. In a moderate freshet, all of these 
might have a fair chance of saving themselves; 
but in a flood they would be helpless. What 
Alston feared for most were his three horses; 
the faithful ones which had, throughout the 
hot summer months, made and harvested his 
crops for him. The week before, intending 
to give them a thorough rest, he had sent them 
across the river in a flat. There had as yet 
been no frost, and the grass on the Island was 
lush and green. "Fll not use them at all for 
a couple of weeks," he had said; "they are 



The Token Flood 183 

tired out; let them rest to their hearts' con- 
tent." 

From the window the planter turned back 
toward the tall figure of Primus, who was now 
hugely enjoying the steaming black coffee. But 
not even that rare and stimulating treat could 
remove the serious light from his eyes, the 
haunted expression of the face, and that alert 
poise of body which showed him waiting for 
Alston's orders. 

When the planter spoke, he showed that he 
had come to one of his thoughtful vital deci- 
sions. 

"Primus, we must get the horses and stock 
over to-night. Token Flood or not, there will 
doubtless be a high water, and by to-morrow 
our help might come too late. How many of 
the boys are up In the Street?" 

Primus looked as if he had expected and 
dreaded this question. 

"Cap'n," he replied, "ain't nobody but dis 
Primus on Eldorado. Don't you 'member 
'bout dat Jubilee Picnic on North Ribber? 
Eberybody is done gone, sah. I self been 
there, but I done come back. Nobody else 
will git back dis night," he added with deso- 
late assurance. 

Amy, the cook, who had been listening with 



184 Old Plantation Days 

thrills of solemn excitement to the conversa- 
tion, now volunteered to second the statements 
of Primus. 

"Yes, sah," she said In a loud voice, ag- 
grlevingly addressing the frothy dish-wateT, 
"Primus done tell de trufe dis time. Ain't 
nobody lef on Eldorado but me dis day. And 
I wouldn't be here neither, Mas' Ned," she 
added, in a tone expressing both affection and 
reproach, "if I hadn't been gettin' your din- 
ner." 

xMston fully appreciated Amy's sacrifice; for 
a Jubilee Picnic seemed able to offer her un- 
common delights. It did not matter that she 
always came home with a headache; for she 
probably reasoned that so humbling an afflic- 
tion was not an ill companion for the new reli- 
gious sanctity which she generally acquired on 
such occasions. 

And now the planter looked at her and at 
Primus, knowing that In these two he had his 
only helps against the flood. 

"Amy," he said In his kindly, earnest way, 
"I believe you had better just leave those things 
as they are and go over home. There's a 
freshet coming down on us to-night. Can you 
move your little ricestack higher up in the yard 
out of the water's reach?" 



The Token Flood 185 

"Yes, my Boss," she answered. Then, as 
if the opportunity to say something disparaging 
about her shiftless husband was too good to 
be missed, she added, in high scorn, "I raise 
all dat rice, Mas' Ned, and cut it and put it 
in de stack. 'Course I can move it. If my 
Ben been here he wouldn't help me. The only 
time he will work is when dat rice comes on 
table." 

Amy, the counterpart in act and appearance 
to Salome, now began to don the "seven veils" 
which were to shield her from the weather: 
a bandanna first, then an ancient shawl, then a 
frayed linen napkin, then a square-yard of cal- 
ico, followed by several head-coverings of star- 
tling design and piteous frailty of existence. 
All the while she was fulminating to herself 
of the shortcomings of her husband. As she 
started toward the door, Alston said: 

"Primus and I will be over after a little, 
Amy, to help you." 

"Yes, sister," the negro added with a strange 
gentleness of affection, "we will guard you; 
so don't you fret yo'self." 

"Now, Primus," said the planter, as soon 
as the door had closed behind Amy, "you and 
I have to do this whole thing ourselves. First, 
we must get the stock off the Island; we must 



186 Old Plantation Days 

try to save the live things first; then we must 
get what we can of the crops high and dry. 
The big flat is at the landing. We must cross 
the river in it at once." 

The tall negro did not demur, though there 
were still vivid in his mind the perils of the 
river. What would certainly have seemed im- 
possible to him was apparently possible to the 
master of Eldorado; and Primus relied with 
an implicit, unquestioning faith on the guiding 
intelligence of the white man. Together they 
were now to face one of the most dangerous 
tasks that had ever confronted a rice planter 
in the Santee country. 

It was a wild night. The autumn, long de- 
laying, was now coming with affluent rupture 
from the North. There was in the air, as 
Alston and the negro stepped out on the back 
porch of Eldorado, premonitions of tempests 
and wild behaviors from those skies which for 
so long had been friendly and radiant. It was 
a wild night, with wild work ahead for the 
planter and his single helper. 

Together the men went out into the storm 
and the gray of the falling darkness. The 
long cypress poles for the flat were brought 
from the barn; and Alston caught up a big 



The Token Flood 187 

coil of plowlines to have on hand in case the 
stock proved unruly. 

When they reached the landing, they found 
that the flood was brimming the great river 
from the dark wooded bank of the mainland 
to the far-off marshy shores of the Island. 
The big rice boat seemed to be flattened against 
the bushes along the bank, and her hawser was 
as taut as tuned wire. Alston, for all his de- 
termination, could not but regard the aspect of 
the task before him with misgivings. The 
mighty river was in a great mood of insurgent 
power. Pacing seaward, the vast volume of 
water was magnificently wild and terrible. 
Debris was everywhere gliding over glassy cur- 
rents, tossed out of the form of breaking waves, 
or whirled violently in sporadic eddies. The 
river had lost all its natural appearances; it had 
broken the bonds of both physical and spiritual 
restraint; and now was a lawless elemental crea- 
ture, tawny-maned, triumphant in its power, and 
delighting in its kinship with the night and. with 
the storm. 

Across the glimm'ering flood, Alston could 
barely distinguish the farther shore; the Pine 
Ridge beyond this, where the stock would be 
marooned and refugeeing, was lost to view in 



188 Old Plantation Days 

the falling rain and the shrouding mist. 

The aspect of what; confronted him so im- 
pressed its menace that Alston, turning to Pri- 
mus who had loosed the flat and was holding 
her with a turn of the hawser about a young 
tupelo tree, said: 

"Primus, I feel that I must go after those 
poor creatures; but I don't want to take you 
into danger. I believe I can manage the flat 
alone — " 

The planter thought it only right to give the 
negro a chance to refuse. 

Primus gave the big hawser a mighty tug to 
express some of his feelings in the matter. 
Then he answered in his deep tones : 

"Cap'n, you know me better than dat. I 
kin drown with you, but I ain't a-gwine to go 
back on my Boss now, seeing he needs me. 
Trouble is common to all, Mas' Ned," he 
added, with the same gentleness in his tone 
that he had used to Amy; *'and you has always 
stood by me in mine." 

A moment later, and the big unwieldy flat 
had been launched on the vast river, Alston and 
Primus, finding that in the deep currents their 
long poles would not propel their ponderous 
craft, now took hold of the heavy, rough-hewn 



The Token Flood 189 

oars. So, standing In the misty rain, they 
urged the flat slowly forward over the tu- 
multuous waters. 

Though the river swept them far out of their 
course, they managed to beat their way across, 
coming at last to the canal leading up through 
Jackfield, one of the squares on the Island. 
There they entered the full canal; and there, in 
the eerie hush and whisper of the wind through 
the half-submerged marsh and sedges, they laid 
down their oars and took hold of their long 
cypress poles. 

It had now grown almost dark; but in the 
southwest there was a lingering glimmer of 
light from the track of the setting sun. On 
the men urged the flat through the "tumultuous 
privacy" of the storm. At length, from the 
top of an old cypress stump beside the water- 
way, a ghostly shape came into view. Alston 
thought it to be some gigantic white bird 
brought thither by the flood; but as the flat 
drew near, the creature cried out pitifully. 

Then, for the first time since they had en- 
tered on their perilous undertaking, both the 
planter and the negro laughed. 

" 'Tis dat ole ram," said Primus; "you can't 
drown him. He got sense like people." 



190 Old Plantation Days 

As the flat came up, the white ram took a 
flying leap and landed abruptly but with fine 
balance in the boat. How long he had been 
standing on the stump, the men could not guess; 
nor did they know what might have become of 
the rest of the flock. But a new impetus had 
been given to their work; for they rescued at 
least one refugee from the waters of the Token 
Flood. 

"Primus, shall we tie him in the flat?" Alston 
asked. 

The negro, who professed with some reason 
a deep understanding of the nature of animals, 
chuckled in disdain. 

"Cap'n," he replied, "you will have to tie 
dat ole ram to get him OUT o' dis safe place." 

They were now making good headway to- 
ward the Pine Ridge. There was no need for 
them to search other parts of the Island for 
the stock; for on this Ridge alone was there 
any dry land left. Some, indeed, might be 
swimming aimlessly about; but there would 
be no chance for the rescuers to find such strag- 
glers. Finally, just as the darkness of night 
seemed closing down, the broad bow of the 
flat grounded on the sedgy shores of the Ridge. 

The planter and his faithful fellow-boatman 
stepped out on the highland. There was still- 



The Token Flood 191 

ness on the Ridge ; but beyond the gnarled live- 
oaks and the towering pines, whose boughs 
drooped with the rain, they could hear a sup- 
pressed tumult. It was the mighty surge and 
sweep of the North Santee now ramping sea- 
ward wildly through the dusk. 

Under the shadows of the drenched oaks, a 
strange twilight glimmered; and by this the 
two men made their way forward. When they 
had come a rod from the boat, they heard a 
horse whinney, and soon discerned the dark 
bulk of the huddled animals. 

Alston put his hand on the arm of Primus, 
staying him for a moment. 

"We must work it right. Primus. Let us 
go round to the very end of the Ridge; then 
come back slowly toward the flat, driving every- 
thing before us. In that way, we'll not be 
likely to leave anything behind. We must go 
about it carefully, Primus, taking our time, al- 
though the daylight has left us." 

The tall negro acquiesced in his quiet way, 
in such a time of crisis alert to understand 
and ready to execute the will of the planter. 

Through the tall sedges, whose rustling had 
almost been hushed by the rising waters; past 
ghostly canebrakes, and through dense tangles 
of briars they went, until they had circled the 



192 Old Plantation Days 

Ridge. In the semi-darkness they passed many 
of the shapes and forms of the animals, some 
of which seemed to recognize them as rescuers, 
and others of which broke wildly away from 
them as if they were final specters of the Token 
Flood. 

Meeting at the northern point of the Ridge, 
on a sandbar which overlooked the vast sweep 
of the river, Alston and Primus began their 
"drive" back toward the flat. 

"You're a big help to me. Primus," said the 
planter, pausing in the darkness to lay his hand 
momentarily on the negro's shoulder; "I 
couldn't do this thing alone." 

"Even de Token Flood," Primus answered, 
still haunted by whatever dread foreboding 
there was in that name, "can't part us, 
Cap'n." 

The strip of dry land remaining on the Ridge 
was narrow, and its width was momentarily 
being encroached upon by the waters. For the 
most part, the driven animals, becoming accus- 
tomed to the voices of the men, were docile; 
and as long as their footing was on the ground, 
the situation to them was not wholly startling 
and strange. 

But when, driven up the incline into the flat, 
they felt themselves standing on floating boards 
surrounded by water, and, out of the shelter 



The Token Flood 193 

of the trees, now beaten by rain and wind, they 
became nervous and excited. 

In the flat there were twenty head of hogs, 
a dozen cattle, and the three horses — not to 
mention the old white goat, which stood, an 
immovable ghost, in the steadiest part of the 
long boat. While Primus waited at the bow 
of the flat to keep the creatures in, Alston went 
among them, quieting them with his gentle voice 
and his reassuring manner. He tied the horses 
to one of the side-rails; the cattle and hogs 
would have to remain loose. Once well away 
from shore the planter believed that they would 
be glad enough to stay in the flat. 

At last the boat was shoved away from the 
Ridge, which receded mistily in the night. It 
was now quite dark; but the flat was in the 
big canal, and the course was kept without difli- 
culty. There seemed a lulling in the wind and 
rain. The flood sweeping over the Island 
fields had its currents broken in a thousand 
places; and, spreading over so vast an area, it 
was neither wild nor of an aspect that boded 
disaster. 

But on approaching the river, all the ani- 
mals became restless. The hogs moved about, 
snifling the wet wind; the cattle, with heads 
high and eyes big, lowed mournfully; the horses 



191 Old Plan I al ion Daijs 

were slightly crouched, with necks arched and 
tails held in close. It was really the creatures' 
actions that made the men realize that they 
were close to the ri\er. Finally, the dripping 
houghs of trees, whose trunks were deep in 
water, brushed their laces. These were the 
trees marking the submerged river-bank. In 
another moment the flat had passed the mouth 
of the canal and was on the tawny breast of the 
river. 

The fierce tide caught the heavy boat and 
turned it slowly about. Alston and Primus, 
laboring at the long oars, worked desperately. 
But though it was now dark, the planter could 
tell, by the heavy water-pressure against his 
oar blade, that they were not crossing the river 
but were going down the current. The crea- 
tures were lowing pitifully and were crowding 
the oarsmen. A huge cypress, dislodged by 
the flood from its home in the swamps, came 
looming suddenly out of the night, and its mo- 
mentum bore crushingly against the flat. The 
boat trembled, stayed in its course, then, turn- 
ing completely about, was released from the 
heavy grasp of the tree. Never in his life had 
Alston been in so desperate a situation. In 
the struggle against the crowding cattle and 



The Token Flood 195 

hogs, and the laboring with the soaked and 
ponderous oar, he had been steadily trying to 
keep his sense of direction. But now he knew 
he had utterly lost It. Both shores were 
blotted out. Darkness, danger, and the storm 
were the boat's attendants. And it seemed as 
though they were Its grim convoy to death and 
destruction. 

The planter looked across the boat; and 
there he could dimly discern the powerful fig- 
ure of Primus, toiling at the task to which he 
had been set; as faithful as trust and affection 
could make a human being. Alston knew well 
that the negro was relying on him to bring the 
boat out of its wild peril; but now the planter 
feared not alone for the safety of the flat, but 
also for their own lives. 

He pulled in his oar and crowded his way 
through the cattle to Primus, lie laid his 
hand on the negro's shoulder. 

"Primus, if anything happens to us, you are 
to hold on to your oar. It will keep you up. 
Don't try to save me. Primus," he added, for 
he knew what the negro would surely attempt 
to do; "PU be hanging on to an oar myself. 
We can ride them ashore, Primus." 

Though his concluding words had been 



196 Old Plantation Days 

spoken In a jovial tone, Alston went back to 
his oar with a heavy heart. The animals were 
now on the verge of stampede. The planter 
found that his attempts to quiet them were 
vain. The boat was running on; the rowing 
of the men was mechanical, for their purpose 
in it was uncertain. There seemed nothing in 
the world anywhere but night and a cataract 
of wild waters plunging to death. 

But suddenly, with a misty uncertainty, on 
a far shore, there gleamed a light. It moved 
about. It was lost to view. It reappeared. 

"Primus!" shouted Alston, "the light, see 
the light! 'Tis the mainland, 'tis Eldorado! 
Pull hard, and I'll back her up !" 

Directed by the wavering light, and given 
by it the final strength they so sorely needed 
to carry them across, the men toiled heroically. 
Somewhat quieted by Alston's shouting, the 
animals gave the men a chance to use their 
powers to the utmost. The ponderous boat 
made headway over the black waters. The 
light grew larger. A bush rasped along the 
side of the flat. The bow ran suddenly into a 
heap of sedge. They had reached Eldo- 
rado. . , . 

Alston and Primus had no difficulty in get- 
ting all the animals out except the old ram. 



The Token Flood 197 

He steadfastly refused to budge ; and held his 
post until daylight showed him that he was not 
going ashore at a doubtful place. 

While they were tying the flat, it was Amy 
who came down with the lantern. 

"Amy!" exclaimed the planter in astonish- 
ment, "I thought I sent you home to look after 
your rice." 

Looking as she always did when she had 
been caught in the act of doing something 
good, Amy said in her shame-faced way: 

"Mas' Ned, I was obleeged to save yo' rice 
fust," and she waved the lantern toward the 
big stack she had moved up out of the reach 
of the waters. "Mine can wait, sah," she 
added simply. 

A tear gleamed in the planter's eye. He 
could hardly trust himself to speak. 

"You saved more than the rice, Amy. If it 
hadn't been for that light. . . . But come, it 
is not too late to save your rice, and that of 
all who are at the Jubilee Picnic from the wa- 
ters of the Token Flood!" 



XVII 

Joel's Christmas turkey 

JOEL'S place was the kind that one comes 
upon suddenly in the pineland wilder- 
ness of the Carolinas; the few meager 
fields and parched pastures leading up to it 
were unfenced, and appeared to be but an open 
stretch of the monotonous landscape. There 
were no groups of whitewashed buildings be- 
hind it, nor pleasant vistas of orchards and 
meadows; for Joel was a poor white woods- 
man and trapper, and his home was in the 
great pine barrens of the coast country of South 
Carolina. The nearest settlement was eight 
miles away, southward down the lonely, grass- 
grown road. His cabin, built of rough-hewn, 
sap-pine logs, already beginning to sag along 
their length and to be crushed where the weight 
of the structure caught them, squatted in a 
rude clearing not much larger than the build- 
ing itself. Scrub pines and sparse patches of 
gallberry and low-bush huckleberry bushes grew 
almost to the door; a weedy path led from the 
road, along which few travelers ever passed, 

198 



Joel's Christmas Turkey 199 

to the rotted doorstep-block. The reason why 
Joel's home was so unhomelike was shnple : he 
had never married, and his real home was in 
the woods. 

Joel was accounted the best woodsman in 
his county; and while he had many rivals, he 
had no peers. He killed on the average of 
twenty deer a season, and his record on wild 
turkeys was even more formidable. Joel al- 
ways said that he had never been to school long 
enough to learn to count above the legal num- 
ber of deer that the law allowed to be taken 
in a season; besides, his third cousin was game 
warden. But for all his craft, there was a 
wild turkey living in the tupelo swamp behind 
his cabin that had made Joel stretch himself, 
and, so far, stretch himself in vain. It seemed 
to the hunter that he had used every whit of 
his strength, woodcraft, patience, and tireless 
energy of pursuit in the attempt to win this 
royal prize; and doubtless the wild gobbler 
knew something of the relentlessness of Joel as 
a hunter, and just how wary he had to be to 
keep his distance from Joel's deadly musket. 
This turkey could not speak human speech as 
can some of the creatures about which our 
fanciful naturalists write. He could not put 
his finger to his nose and scoff at Joel, saying, 



200 Old Plantation Days 

"O sad brother, I am the Wise One. Booloo 
is my friend. I shall meet him at the Council 
Tree at midnight, and you will never find us 
any more." He was just a plain turkey; but 
when that has been said all has been said that 
need be mentioned; for if a plain wild turkey 
is not the most intelligent bird afoot or awing, 
then the dodo isn't dead. 

Joel had first seen him one sultry September 
day, when the pine woods were fervidly hot, 
when the grass was as sear as tinder, and when 
the lush-grown swamps were sending up in 
steaming moisture the little water that the long 
drought had left in them. There was no wing 
stirring. The birds, hidden deep in the thick- 
ets, were still. Even the wood-cicadas had 
ceased their dry, insistent shrilling. Joel, com- 
ing down a sandy path through the scrub-oak, 
not far from the west bank of the Santee River, 
heard a hen-turkey's sudden and startled "put ! 
put!" Joel halted in his tracks, while his keen 
gray eyes swept the bushy savanna over to his 
left, whence the sound had come. He did not 
see the mother, but he saw the young one (there 
appeared to be but the one) as it came step- 
ping from behind the shelter of a broomsedge 
tussock. A half-grown wild gobbler he was, 
remarkably large and well formed. He was 



Joel's Christmas Turkey 201 

so big as to be awkward; but, like all members 
of his hunted race, he was shy and swift and 
wonderfully gifted in the woodland art of si- 
lently and suddenly effacing himself. For a 
second he was in Joel's sight; then he vanished. 
When a wild turkey vanishes, after having seen 
a man, depend upon it, bank upon it, he's gone. 

Joel came cautiously round the edge of the 
thicket, looking for others of the brood. But 
he saw none. Not far away was the sandy 
road, and toward this the trapper went; for 
if one cannot see the game itself one can at 
least have the dubious satisfaction of seeing 
its tracks. In the damp sand where a summer- 
dried stream had crossed the road, he found 
the turkey's tracks. There, lightly and spring- 
ily set, were those of the hen; while beside 
them were great, sprawling tracks, with big, 
wide-spreading toes that mashed the sand. 

"Well, now, jest look at that!" muttered 
Joel as he bent over them; "the young un's feet 
are bigger than his ma's!" 

Then he stood up and looked toward the 
dark swamp into whose deep recesses the two 
turkeys had vanished. Knowing the pine 
woods from the Santee to the Cooper, and 
from the railroad to the sea, the trapper knew 
where these turkeys would feed, range, roost. 



202 Old Plantation Days 

And he felt sure that by Christmas-time the 
hen and the fine young gobbler would bring him 
a big price from some epicurean clients of his 
living down in the village on the nearby coast. 
The luxuriance of the summer passed into 
the mournful beauty of the autumn, and the 
autumn gave place to the winter; but still Joel 
had not fulfilled the plan he had made that 
September day when for the first time he had 
looked at the turkey-tracks in the road. A 
score of times he had seen the splendid wild 
bird; other turkeys fell before his gun; but 
the big bronzed racer of the pineland always 
escaped. The winter wore along to the early 
spring, but Joel was still unsuccessful. Late 
one March afternoon, on his return through a 
tupelo swamp after a trip for raccoon, Joel 
heard the gobbler down in a heavy clump of 
cypresses gobbling a provoked answer to a 
rookery of crows that were cawing away in 
their careless fashion. As soon as he got to 
his cabin the trapper took down from a smoke- 
blackened beam a small white bone, the radius 
of a turkey's wing. He washed it, blew 
through it, squinted down it; then, placing it 
to his mouth and hollowing his hands In front 
of it, he drew forth the soft and pleading notes 
of a hen turkey. 



JoeVs Christmas Turkey 203 

"That will fetch the old sport," he said to 
himself; "leastwise I never yet seen the gob- 
bler that wouldn't jest streak it for me when 
I called." 

It was still quite dark when Joel stepped 
out of his cabin next morning. The vast for- 
est was sleeping under its mantle of mist. In 
the velvet-purple of the night sky the stars 
shone beautiful. High in the darkness the 
crests of the mighty pines murmured and waved. 
Fragrances of the wild and virgin woods moved 
subtly across the path down which Joel stepped, 
and met him also, more deep and rich, in the 
glimmering road. But the trapper, to whom 
such influences were too ordinary to be impres- 
sive, pushed on rapidly through the mist. 
Slung under his right arm, with its cap and 
priming kept dry by the flap of his old coat, 
was his musket; an ancient weapon, decidedly 
out of date as far as appearances were con- 
cerned, but one which had never yet failed 
Joel. On the few occasions when he had 
missed, he had never blamed his musket for it. 
No good hunter ever blames his gun, when once 
that gun has proved itself true. 

A short walk down the road brought the 
turkey hunter to a blind sheep path, which an 



204 Old Plantation Bays 

ordinary man would have passed without see- 
ing; but, to him, the woods and their ways 
were as well known by night as by day. On 
he tramped through the bush-hung path. The 
gallberry bushes drenched him with their dew. 
The cool, misty tops of the bending broomsedge 
brushed him with a rainy fragrance. There 
were many odors of the coming spring wafted 
on the night air. Joel did not walk carelessly; 
he stepped with the easy stride of a woodsman, 
yet with caution and alertness. Only a woods- 
man knows how to be alert withcmt being 
strained. Through these woods he was trav- 
ersing there was danger; for on a certain day 
of that same week he had counted fourteen 
rattlesnakes, dragging themselves across his 
path, lying in loose coils between the tussocks 
of broomsedge, and sunning themselves beside 
fallen logs and sheltering stumps. 

In half an hour Joel came to an airy ridge 
in the woods, and here he halted. Behind him 
lay the darksome forest, still dreaming in its 
mantling mists; but before him, like the efful- 
gence from some distant fire, there was a living 
glow in the sky. Slowly the velvet-purple of 
the heavens changed to a velvet-violet, then to 
a velvet-blue. Beyond the vast tupelo swamp 



JoeVs Christmas Turkey 205 

where he had roosted the gobbler, the red col- 
ors brightened and extended themselves along 
the horizon. 

Joel sat down on a log, laid his musket care- 
fully across his knees, took out his turkey 
call, and sounded tentatively a few trial notes. 
The sound was clear and sweet, and the atmos- 
phere was just right for carrying it. He hol- 
lowed his big bronzed hands and drew luring 
music from the white bone ; plaintive and plead- 
ing and feminine were the notes that came 
forth. In them were the tenderness and glam- 
our of the voices of young love and the early 
springtime, voices of hope and of promise. 

Far away, on his lonely roost in the huge 
old moss-draped cypress, the gobbler heard the 
sound. It pierced the solitude with a poignant 
sweetness that could not be resisted. Loudly 
and with masculine assurance he gobbled an 
answer to the yearning call. Then he launched 
himself out on his powerful wings, and sailed, 
straight as a quail flies for cover, toward the 
crouching hunter. The big turkey came to 
ground on the edge of the swamp; and there, 
being greeted by a further call, very soft this 
time, he put his head forward and down and 
raced for his alluring goal. 

Joel had heard him gobble, but he did not 



20G Old Plantation Days 

see him coming. Had he known that his royal 
game was so near, he would have gone down 
on one knee in the grass. But instead of that 
he did something that was fatal to his success: 
he took the call from his mouth and shook the 
moisture out of it. The hunter had a flash- 
ing glimpse ahead of him of a broad bronzed 
back and a darting blue-black head. Before 
he could throw his musket up the vision was 
gone. Silently the great swamp, the sanctuary 
of the hunted, had taken back its own. Into 
its secure refuge the great wild bird had van- 
ished. 

"I knowed better n that," said Joel disgust- 
edly, still sitting on his log. "I might have 
knowed he would come a-pokin' up. But now 
he's gone; and by gone I mean he's cleaned up, 
quit the country, maybe quit the world. If a 
man doesn't shoot a turkey the minute the tur- 
key sees him, it's good-by, Susie. And I could 
yelp here all day and he wouldn't even stop 
getting away from me. I reckon he thought 
I was shaking my finger at him. Gentlemen, 
he's a sundowner. But I don't deserve to have 
him." 

The pineland hunter rose to his feet, know- 
ing that his game had escaped him, knowing, 



Joel's Christmas Turkey 207 

too, that for a long time it would be practically 
impossible to get the wary old gobbler to come 
to his call. But there were other ways of 
getting this bronzed racer of the wilderness; 
and to a man like Joel the woods would not 
long deny another chance at the coveted prize. 

But the spring and the summer passed, and 
he saw no more of his gobbler. But the au- 
tumn, with its bared forests and its fallen crop 
of acorns to attract turkeys to special places, 
brought Joel once more into distant acquaint- 
anceship with the big bird. Once he had 
stalked him among sweet live-oak acorns under 
the giant oaks on a deserted plantation; but 
the wary monarch had been just a flash too 
quick for him. Again he thought he had cor- 
nered him in a big patch of high blackberry 
canes in the woods; and if Joel could have 
made him fly, the turkey would have been his. 
But the crafty bird refused to rise. After 
beating about the briars into which he had seen 
the gobbler skulk, Joel came out into the road, 
and there he saw the racer's huge tracks — the 
flying trail left by him in the sandy loam. Joel 
whistled incredulously as he stood up after 
measuring the tracks. 

"Four inches from tip to tip," he said: "the 



208 Old Plantation Days 

biggest gobbler that ever ran these woods. 
And he'll be mine afore long, or my finger never 
touched trigger!" 

But another whole year passed, and yet an- 
other, and Joel was still without his prize. 
His continual hunting of the big turkey had 
made that splendid creature abandon his old 
haunts. He no longer fed in the dense bays 
and gallberry patches of the Little Ocean; he 
no longer roosted in the tupelo swamp. Out 
of the pine woods and towards the river swamps 
Joel had driven him. The hunter did not al- 
together approve of the turkey's new range, 
for well he knew that if once the gobbler took 
a notion to cross the river he would probably 
take up with other members of his own tribe 
in the swamps and pinelands on the North San- 
tee side, never to return to his former home. 
This was especially likely, Joel knew, if he were 
not hunted beyond the river. During this last 
year he had been dividing his time among three 
or four old deserted plantations — Romney, 
Montgomery, Oldfield and Fairfield — that bor- 
dered on the Santee delta. It was on Romney, 
one November morning, that Joel had shot 
at the huge gobbler as he sailed off his roost 
in a giant short-leaf. But, as he said to him- 
self with grim humor, "I kindled, but he did 



Joel's Ch'istmas Turkey 209 

not curtsey." For a month thereafter he saw 
nothing of the object of his quest. 

The twilight of Christmas Eve was falling 
as Joel, weary but hopeful, traversed the deso- 
late, sandy field leading from the pine woods 
to the river bank on Romney Plantation. All 
day long he had followed the giant gobbler, 
and even the hardihood of Joel was sorely 
taxed. But before him in the sand he saw 
the fresh tracks which had been left by the 
wonderful bird he was pursuing. At length 
he came to a fringe of trees marking the bank 
of the river. Hardly had Joel paused to look 
and to listen when, from a thickety clump of 
elders, a hundred yards away, a great bulk 
rose heavily and beat its way over the marsh. 
Its flight took it upward, and bore it into a 
huge moss-shrouded cypress that stood on the 
very brink of the wide river. There it alighted 
heavily; clearly against the afterglow in the 
sky Joel could see Its great bulk rock on the 
limb, lower its weight car€l"ully, and at last 
settle on its perch. He had roosted the 
mighty bird! At last, after all those years, 
he was going to have a fair chance at the larg- 
est and craftiest wild gobbler that had ever 
ranged the Santee country. 

For a half-hour, while the light died and the 



210 Old Plantation Days 

noises from field and fen wakened and were 
hushed again, Joel sat in the dry grass with his 
keen eyes riveted on the black mass that never 
stirred in the ancient gray cypress. At last the 
real darkness was at hand, and he must make 
his shot before it would be too late to see his 
game. 

He could not cross the boggy marsh that lay 
between him and the big cypress. But a short 
detour, by way of an old check-bank, brought 
him almost under the vast bulk of the tree. 
Through the branches, draped with moss, he 
saw the Christmas stars; and motionless on a 
stout limb, to Joel's tingling satisfaction, sat 
the great wild turkey. All the hunter's stalk- 
ing ended here. 

Joel peered this way and that, trying to get 
his game clear of intervening limbs. It was 
tense work, as the light was almost gone. 
Finally, when he dared to step out on the edge 
of the marsh to get an unimpeded view, he 
was amazed and bewildered to see tzvo black 
shapes in the cypress, where but one had been 
visible before. Moreover, they appeared to 
be of the same size, and they were undoubtedly 
of the same shape. Joel exclaimed under his 
breath. His first thought was there were two 
turkeys in the tree, but then he came to the 



Joel's Christmas Turkey 211 

conclusion that one was his gobbler and the 
other was a huge bunch of mistletoe. 

But which was which ? Joel peered and pon- 
dered. The light was going so fast that the 
great tree had talcen on a more shadowy out- 
line, and the two dark shapes were fast merg- 
ing into the blackness of the cypress branches. 
Which object should he shoot? Which one 
was the royal bird, and which one was the 
bunch of Christmas greens? In vain did Joel 
crane his neck this way and that, straining his 
good eyes. Not even he could distinguish be- 
tween the two dim objects so high up in the 
night. 

At last he raised his musket, gripping it 
strongly with his bronzed hands. It roared 
out on the twilight. Its detonation rolled far 
up and down the misty reaches of the river. 
And Joel saw two things happen: first, a dark 
bulk launched itself out from the tree, directing 
its powerful flight above the river and toward 
what lay beyond; secondly, another dark shape 
swayed in the cypress, turned slowly, cracked, 
and came rushing to the ground. Joel had shot 
off the bunch of mistletoe. The king of the 
pineland wilderness had escaped across the 
river. 

But Joel was a game sport. He picked up 



212 Old Planlaiion Days 

the bunch of mistletoe and slung it slowly over 
his shouKler. 

"I'll t:ike it home aiul hanji; it in tiie house," 
he said; "it will 'mind me of Christmas." 



XVIII 

THE BANDED DEATH 

THE blackberries grew thick by the old 
rotting rail fence that stretched across 
the wide field lying between the pine- 
woods and the river. The adventurous vines 
climbed over and under the rails, and along 
their sagging length until they covered, with a 
green unfailing shower, the upright supports 
at the corners. The tall sprays that did not 
rest on the fence bent and swayed under the 
ripe abundance of their fruit. On one side of 
the fence was a field of young corn, the cool 
dark blades just long enough to begin to rustic 
and wave; on the other side the land was un- 
planted and the grass and weeds were high and 
rank. Here and there along the line of the 
fence was a wild cherry tree where, in the sum- 
mer, birds of all kinds would feast on and fight 
over the black and bitter fruit. But now it 
was only May, and the cherries had hardly 
formed. 

The woman whose husband worked in the 

213 



214 Old Plantation Days 

great cotton mill, looming up darkly on the 
edge of the river, had come out along the old 
fence to pick blackberries. It was in the after- 
noon and the air was fresh and sweet, and a 
part of the grass field was already in the shadow 
of the pines. The little child she carried in 
her arms was at the age dearest to mothers; 
he had just begun to gurgle a few baby words, 
and when he opened his quaint cherub lips the 
tiniest of glistening pearls could be seen. He 
was the woman's only child, and who could not 
guess how precious to her he was! She had 
always taken him with her wherever she went, 
and so, when she came out to gather the first 
berries of the spring as a treat for her hus- 
band's supper, she brought the little boy with 
her. 

When they left the house she had given 
him the small woven-grass basket to hold, and 
his chubby hands clutched it tightly. But as 
they got farther away from the straggling 
houses of the mill village and into the green 
fields, shimmering with the nameless promise 
of the spring; and as the soft wind came whis- 
pering up to them and past them, breathing of 
far blue summer days that had been and of 
fairer ones to come, then the child, without 
shame, lost all sense of the grave responsibil- 



The Banded Death 215 

Ity which should have been his as bearer of 
the basket. He sat up straight In his moth- 
er's arms; he crowed; he curled up his little 
legs and liicked out In sheer Infant abandon and 
delight; time and again he let the basket fall 
with bubbles of liquid laughter. And the 
mother only gave It to him again, kissed him, 
and held him the closer. 

They came to where the blackberries were 
ripe and plentiful, and the woman, putting the 
baby down, cleared a little space In the grass 
near the fence. Here she might leave her 
child in safety while she gathered the black- 
berries that grew near; and here, after many 
kisses, she left him. 

The child did not cry. He looked after his 
mother for a moment with wide questioning 
blue eyes; but his little heart must have been 
loved into feeling that whatever his mother 
did must be right, for his face did not cloud. 
He had learned, on the smooth, yellow pine 
floor at home, to talk wisely to his toes, and 
to pass the drear Intervals when his mother 
could not hold him in other like admirable in- 
fant occupations. So he was very happy by 
himself in the warm May sun. He pulled the 
soft, tender spears of grass and wondered with 
deep eyes of innocence at a great green grass- 



216 Old Plantation Days 

hopper whose length of limb was marvelous. 
When the child looked over the edge of the 
grass he could see the blue sky, and the crests 
of the purple pines, and the falling sun that 
would soon be behind them. But he was a 
very natural child and cared less for the glories 
that would be the setting sun's than for that 
wonderful grasshopper; he watched him climb 
a tall spear of coffeegrass that bent under his 
weight, and crowed with delight and surprise 
when the gentleman of the long shanks, with 
a bold leap and a great show of wings, half 
jumped, half sailed, over the edge of the fence. 
For a week the Banded Death had hunted 
along the river, and now was making his way 
toward the pinewoods where he had his home. 
He followed the line of the old rail fence, for 
it was a direct way and a safe way. And 
caution had always been his motto since that 
day, years before, when the gray boar that 
roamed through the field near the river had 
trampled him, tusked him, and left him for 
dead. Through the soft grass at the bottom 
of the fence he ghded slowly; his bright, me- 
tallic eyes piloted the way well; he must be 
able to see a foot ahead of him before he 
would advance an inch. Now he sloped his 
big body over a low rail to make a short cut 



The Banded Death 217 

for the next corner; now his five feet of bone 
and muscle and scale would suddenly become 
tense and rigid while the minute ears listened 
and the beady eyes gleamed with cunning in- 
telligence. The twelve rattles he carried on 
his tail were evidence that he had been in the 
world long enough to be very wary and wise. 
The rattles were stained with river mud and 
made a harsh whisper as they were drawn 
through withered leaves or over broken splin- 
ters on the fence. At his coming all kinds of 
wild life fled: the field mice, squeaking shrilly, 
dived into their holes; the birds, uttering 
strange cries, rose from the bushes and briars 
and, circling near at first within the spell of a 
dread fascination, at last flew wildly and far 
away. The great fear was upon them all. In 
savage loneliness the Banded Death moved on. 
And, for all the bright horror of the wide 
sunken eyes; the sullen droop, almost human in 
its malice, at the corners of the mouth; the 
powerful jaws, articulated with the strength 
of steel; the huge muscles of the shapely body 
that could drive a sickening and deadly blow; 
the faint, cold pallor of thin, contemptuous lips 
— in spite of all these things the Banded Death 
was very beautiful. There was the marvel of 
the color design on his back; the wonderful 



218 Old Plantation Bays 

muscular control that made his movements 
rhythmic and flowing; and, above all, the spirit 
of power that went with him, and the spirit 
of awe that went before him. 

Even the child was old enough to think the 
Banded Death beautiful. The grasshopper 
had just flown out of sight when the rattle- 
snake came gliding up to the clearing that the 
mother had made for the child; he smelt the 
freshly trampled grass and the strange odor 
of man; he slipped along by stealthy inches 
until his baleful eyes saw into the clearing. 
There was the child, talking wisely and con- 
tentedly to his toes. For some moments the 
snake lay still and watched; the sight was a 
decidedly unique one in his experience. After 
a while his curiosity overcame his caution; hiss- 
ing softly he came out slowly into the clearing. 
But he did not advance his full length; he let 
his body lie in heavy coils; by merely straight- 
ening from such a position a tremendous blow 
could be struck. At last he lay clear of the 
surrounding grass; and just then the child, a 
foot away, saw him. 

The sun had begun to touch the tops of the 
pines, and the mother needed only one more 
handful of blackberries to fill her basket. 
While she had gathered them she had been 



The Banded DeatJi 219 

very happy, for her thoughts had been of the 
little boy and of his father, the strong, true 
man who had brought so much into her life. 
Every now and then, as the wind blew toward 
her, she could hear the child's baby talk and 
laughter and she felt him to be as safe and 
happy as she. She must soon be going, she 
thought, for the little boy must not be kept 
out in the dew, and besides she always met her 
husband when he came home from his work. 
She would pick just this one handful more and 
then she would go. 

The child saw the Beautiful Death that lay 
in the sunshine on the edge of the bending grass; 
he had never been afraid of anything; he was 
not afraid of the snake. He stretched out his 
little rosy arms toward it and laughed and 
gurgled. The snake shortened his coil, and in 
his hiss now there was menace. The last rays 
of the sun shone on the head of the reptile; 
they seemed to light up all his evil features. 
They showed that his eyes had a touch of red 
in them and were lustful; they showed a fleck 
of dried blood, not his own, on the cruel curve 
of the lip; they showed the spreading nostrils 
and the jaws of iron. But the child could see 
none of these things; for the child knew noth- 
ing of lust, of cruelty, of blood. He rolled 



220 Old Vlantalion Days 

over on his stomach and, taking hold on the 
grass, pulled himself playfully toward the 
snake; he touched the monster's cold head with 
his little warm fingers. And not even then did 
the Banded Death strike — *the child's touch 
was a caress; in the child's face and voice was 
nc'itiier hatred nor fear. Then the rattlesnake, 
hissing softly, tnovctl out of his heavy coil, and 
disappeared in the brush along the fencerow. 
riiat night, wlien the little child had been 
safely tucketl in his crib, the man and his wife 
sat in the moonlight on the porch. And she 
told him of her happy afternoon, of the quiet 
safety of the green fields, and of how good the 
baby had been. And as their love thrilled in 
her voice, he bent near and kissed her tenderly; 
for they were lovers. 

That night, far away in the dim and silent 
pinewoods, the huge rattler found his olil dew 
and his mate. 

Why had lie not struck the child? God 
knows. 



XIX 

THE BLACK MALLARD 

TWILIGHT was falling on Hudson Bay, 
and a keen November wind had set in 
from the north; swaying the tall and 
watchful darkness of the firs, bending and rus- 
tling the sere reeds, and driving the gray clouds 
southward. The mallards that had been doz- 
ing and feeding on the Bay edges grew uneasy 
and restless. They quacked with cautious ex- 
citement and stretched their wings; they swam 
in swift erratic semi-circles with their heads 
erect and turning; they seemed to scent both 
danger and delight on the autumn wind. And 
to one solitary drake the whole flock seemed 
to turn as if for guidance and direction. 

As the hart-royal led the great droves of 
deer in the forests of old England, so this 
mallard was supreme among his fellows; and 
there was a bearing about him that made him 
regal. He was a third larger than any duck 
there; his plumage, instead of being the soft 
gray with the green neck and head and the 

221 



222 Old Plantation Days 

tinted wing feathers, was jetty and rich like that 
of a black swan. And now, while the others 
were quacking vaguely with half-distracted pre- 
monitions, he alone seemed superbly sure of 
himself. He alone appeared to know with cer- 
tainty the message that was borne to them on 
that wind out of the freezing North, he alone 
seemed to feel the wild joy of flight thrill 
through him. For he was the oldest and the 
wisest of the mallards, and he knew that the 
night for migration had come. 

The Black Mallard swam a little out into the 
Bay as if to marshal his forces; then he gave 
a strident flight-call which electrified the flock. 
Once more his call rang out; then, striking his 
great tinted wings on the water, he sprang 
upward and forward, towering by degrees to 
a height of four hundred feet, the flock after 
him, all quacking an understanding chorus and 
falling into line. The Mallard headed due 
south, toward the far warm ricefields on the 
Carolina coast. 

Two thousand miles lay before them; two 
thousand miles under the autumn stars! The 
silver sickle of the new moon was setting as 
they began their flight, the flight that would 
not finally end until they rested on the sunny 
reefs that fringe the southern ocean. They 



The Black Mallard 223 

were flying with the wind; so there was little 
need of their phalanx and hollow-triangle 
formations, but simply the steady straight flight 
through the vaulted darkness. Beneath them 
towns and cities flitted past; now they shot over 
a glimmering river, now over a quiet village 
with a few mild pilgrim lights; now over a 
dark forest where the wind and the stars held 
mystic communion; now they flashed above bays 
and inlets where the salt tide, brimming high, 
and the reeds and the marshes and the seawind 
called to them in myriad tongues that spoke 
but one word, and that a word to lure them 
downward to delights. But the Black Mal- 
lard was not to be lured. Through the high 
cold air his flight was steady and strong; the 
great pinions were bearing him southward at 
seventy miles an hour. The little moon and 
its faint afterglow had long since disappeared. 
The smaller stars grew clearer, while the huge 
night grew more silent and more empty. And 
on the wonder and swiftness of a faultless flight 
the ducks rushed southward. Nor were they 
lonely in their passage; for far through the 
hollow darkness were speeding many voyagers, 
calling to one another in their mystic voices. 

Throughout the night this matchless flight 
continued; and when the east flushed, and the 



224 Old Plantation Days 

dawn came, dewy and radiant as from a fresh 
unwearied world, the Black Mallard led his 
cohorts winding down the "invisible staircase 
of the wind" until they alighted on a small 
river, overarched by willows and birches. 
There they spent the day. But with the twi- 
light their passage was continued. New Eng- 
land was left behind; New York City looked 
like a blur of foggy light as they whirled a 
few miles to westward of it; now they skirted 
the Jersey coast; Delaware followed; they 
sighted the vast calm waters of the Chesapeake 
gleaming under the timorous glances of the 
maiden moon. Then came the Potomac, and 
the long low Virginia shores, behind which lay 
a deeply-wooded country, with here and there 
overgrown fields and deserted plantations. 
Soon they reached the North Carolina line 
and the great belt of long-leaf pines. Already 
to the east, over the heaving gray ocean, the 
sky was becoming pale; one by one the smaller 
stars went out; the planets looked white and 
high. And in the air was the fragrance, the 
rapture, the wonder of the South; the warmth, 
the spicy odors, the aromatic winds, the luring 
sweetness of an exquisite charm. Beneath the 
migrants the crests of the purple pines were 
touched into golden light by the rising sun. 



The Black Mallard 225 

The coast line was beginning to be fringed with 
dark growths of gnarled cedars. The ducks 
were almost at their journey's end. Still on- 
ward forged their great leader until at last, 
when they had come to the mouth of a turgid 
yellow river, he turned to the eastward and 
led his followers seaward. Finally, with a 
great whirring of wings and calls of weariness 
and delight they settled on a glimmering sand- 
reef, a mile off the mouth of the Santee River, 
and two thousand miles from Hudson's Bay! 

There all day long they rested and sported 
in the salt water; and when the flood-tide that 
would bring the high water into the ricefields 
came with the sunset, still led by the Black 
Mallard they rose and flew some five miles up 
the river where they settled in the overgrown 
fields to feed; and such a rare and succulent 
supper was awaiting them! There were wam- 
pee-buds, wild-grass heads, duck-oats, an abun- 
dance of waste volunteer rice, and now and then 
a delicious alligator acorn. 

Several times during their flight over the 
delta, on the reed-hidden check-banks beneath 
them, they were aware of dark ominous figures; 
but ever the Black Mallard led them high above 
the danger of the negro hunter. He piloted 
them across the river-row of ricefields and 



226 Old Plantation Daijs 

headed for a far corner on the very edge of a 
somber cypress swamp; and in that secluded 
retreat, overgrown with marsh and duck-oats, 
where the first stars gleamed softly in the brim- 
ming tide, they towered down on roaring wings 
and were soon feasting in the warm still water 
in and out among the clumps of marsh and the 
tall reeds. 

A few days after the flight of the Black 
Mallard and his followers, Colonel Jocelyn met 
Scipio Lightning, the negro poacher, trespass- 
ing amiably on one of his ricefield banks; but 
the Colonel, being above suspicioning any man 
of poaching, greeted him with one of his benign 
smiles. There was an ancient friendship be- 
tween the two, endeared by many a hardship 
and by many a pleasure together in the woods 
and fields of the old Santee country, 

Scipio was carrying his musket as he strolled 
nonchalantly down the bank, but when he saw 
the Colonel he shoved it down in the coffee- 
grass on the margin, not pausing in his walk, 
and marked the place by a twist of his naked 
foot in the mud. 

"Well, Scipio," remarked the Colonel, "you 
are pretty sprightly for an old fellow like you." 
The Colonel himself was beginning to feel his 
years, and at no time showed it more plainly 



The Black Mallard 227 

than when he playfully remarked on the in- 
firmities of others. 

"Yes, Boss, dat's so," replied the wily Scipio. 
For reasons of precedent, the negro never met 
the old planter without entertaining thoughts 
of a gift; and at this time he particularly cov- 
eted a plug of tobacco from the Colonel's com- 
missary. Resorting to guile, therefore, he 
opened the campaign with a most respectful 
and expectant silence. 

"Scipio, do you remember when you were 
paddling me over Moorland last winter that 
big mallard drake that we saw? He looked 
like a mallard, but he was as black as a rac- 
coon's rings. Don't you remember him?" 

"Yes, sah, I 'member dat ole fellah," re- 
sponded Scipio. 

"Have you seen him this year?" 

♦'No, sah." 

"You know they sometimes come back to the 
same feeding-grounds. He may come back 
this season if some pot-hunter doesn't kill him. 
If you ever see a pot-hunter on my place, 
Scipio, you let me know. They're a bad lot, 
all of them." 

"Dat's so," responded the poacher amiably, 
though he had some personal feelings in the 
matter. Yet he felt, down in his heart, that 



228 Old Plantation Days 

it was shoddy work to deceive the dear old 
Colonel whom he loved and for whom he would 
do anything. He felt this the more strongly 
because only the evening before Scipio had seen 
the Black Mallard. Still, if he told Colonel 
Jocelyn, he knew very well that the old gentle- 
man would have him paddling all the old rice- 
fields on the river; pushing up blind creeks and 
poking around canebrakes, talking all the while 
in that loud yet cautious whisper that would 
make the ducks get up three hundred yards 
away, frightening them far more than a war- 
whoop would have done. 

"Well, Scipio," the Colonel concluded with 
some disappointment, as he gazed over the rich 
sweep of riceland with here and there a far 
glimpse of cabin, or winding river, or gray 
plantation house, "if you should see the mal- 
lard or hear of him, let me know. You and 
I can go after him together — . And, Scipio, 
come up to the house to-night; I have a piece 
of tobacco there that's tired of waiting for 
you." 

With that, the old gentleman turned away 
and passed down the bank toward the overseer's 
house. 

Scipio had become restless, for he did not 
know how long the Colonel would engage him 



The Black Mallard 229 

in conversation; and the best chance for a shot 
at the Black Mallard was on a bank running 
into the cypress swamp more than a mile away. 
And it was nearly time for the evening flight 
to begin. Therefore as soon as Colonel Joce- 
lyn had gone what seemed to the negro a dis- 
creet distance, Scipio stooped level with the 
:offee-grass and scuttled down the bank to where 
he had left his musket. Grasping it at the 
balance he struck out in a swift fox-trot for a 
far-away corner-field, — lonely, adjacent to the 
great cypress swamp, and a place so remote that 
no negro but Scipio would venture into it at 
twilight. 

He had seen the Black Mallard come into 
that very field the evening before, and though 
he had been almost within gunshot, the drake 
had not seen him, and would therefore probably 
return to his favorite feeding-ground that night. 
Reaching the field before the up-river flight of 
ducks began, he left the bank and bogged out 
into a thick clump of marsh that would make 
a better blind than the sedge on the bank. 
Scipio was no ordinary hunter; for when he was 
after game — especially game for which a gen- 
tleman of the Santee Club had offered a bounty 
— he was not content to make reasonably sure 
of a kill, but must needs make positively cer- 



230 Old Plantation Days 

tain. Therefore he paid little heed to those 
things which were a part of the price of his 
success — the trembling alligator-beds on which 
he stepped, the cold water in which he stood 
up to the waist. He" made his way into the 
marsh carefully so that not even the wisest of 
the mallards would see his trail; with great 
patience he bent aside the sharp blades, feeling 
for a footing on the marsh-roots. He reached 
the center and there stood still, the musket ly- 
ing in the hollow of his arm, his battered cap 
slouched over his eyes, and his keen sight 
searching the southeastern horizon. 

Scipio was a long way from home. The 
night was fast coming on. Near him loomed, 
shadowy and vast, moldering in silence, the 
gray unsearchable cypress swamp. The water 
in which he stood was the home of many a 
deadly reptile. On the bank which he must 
traverse in the dark on his homeward journey 
lurked the huge diamond-back rattler, truculent 
and deadly. The bed of the morass on which 
the negro's weight rested was treacherous; it 
was a quagmire that quaked when he breathed; 
a false step might plunge him over his depth. 

Over the earth and sky there had now fallen 
a wonderful stillness, divinely wistful and poign- 
ant with twilight thoughts and twilight images. 



The Black Mallard 231 

The colors in the west — rose, and ivory, and 
silver-gray — were fading. In the red glow 
above the dark pine forest the evening star 
hung like a raindrop on a rose. The tide was 
at its height and seemed asleep. From far, 
far away, from the heart of the pinewoods, be- 
yond the river, came the melodious voice of a 
negro, whooping on his way home. But Scipio 
had but one thought — the Black Mallard. 
His eyes were fixed on the sky-line; it was there 
that the first of the flight would be visible. He 
waited motionless, completely hidden by the 
tall marsh, a dusky sinister figure. Once or 
twice he stroked his musket affectionately; 
crude it was, coated with rust, gaping in the 
seams, but a fatal weapon in the hands of the 
poacher. 

Suddenly the great stillness was broken by 
a barred-owl's hoot and scream. Then, from 
some swamp up the river, a flock of blue-winged 
teal shot by like a charge of bullets; then two 
wood-ducks with weird soft calls whirred down 
over the cypresses and splashed into the water 
within a few feet of the marsh where Scipio 
stood. But the negro must get the shot he 
wanted or none at all. He had just the one 
load in the musket, and that was for the Black 
Mallard. Soon, now, the flight from the coast 



232 Old Plantation Days 

began to stream in. First came a few wary 
pairs, with wings set wide to flare at a moment's 
notice of danger; then long lines of black-ducks 
and widgeons, too hungry to be heedful, too far 
away from men's dwellings to fear men, too 
safe in the multitude of their number to be 
suspicious. They swarmed over Scipio's marsh 
until the air was resonant with the whistling 
music of their wings, with strident calls, with 
old-comrade quacks, with now and then a cau- 
tious, lest-we-forget q-u-a-c-k ! from a wise old 
drake. They were lighting all about the 
marsh, and there was just enough of the faint 
glow left in the west for Scipio to distinguish 
them; sprig-tail, widgeons, shovelers, canvas- 
backs, teal, wood-ducks, buffle-heads, baldpates, 
green-headed mallards. But the Black Mal- 
lard had not come. The twilight was darken- 
ing, and soon the flight would be over. Per- 
haps the monarch was already feasting in some 
other field. Scipio was about to give up, and 
had actually leveled his musket on a flock of 
black-ducks swimming near him, when some 
instinct made him turn his gaze toward the 
faded horizon. A great bulk loomed in the 
empty heavens. It was rushing down on the 
negro poacher. The Black Mallard was at 
last within his grasp ! 



The Black Mallard 233 

Sclpio gripped his musket as he had never 
done in his life before, while his gaunt muscular 
body became tense. Against the broad glossy 
breast of the great mallard the brass sight of 
the iron gun glimmered. Finer and finer the 
negro drew the sight; his finger tightened slowly 
on the trigger; and — the quaking grass on 
which he stood, overstrained by the man's 
weight that he exerted in his excitement, broke 
under him ! One leg shot down to the hip in 
the sucking mud. His musket roared out, 
belching fire, fumes, and smoke; but it was 
aimed at nothing, and it almost kicked the 
negro's arm off. Struggling, sputtering, grop- 
ing for something that would not give way un- 
der his feet or the touch of his hands, Scipio 
finally managed to pull himself up on the alli- 
gator beds again. Thence he labored out of 
the sedgy morass to the bank. There he shiv- 
ered and stamped his feet. Then he took off 
his old cap and bared his head to the waking 
stars. 

"Dat's the last time," he said, in a voice that 
showed that in spite of his profession there 
was still much good left in Scipio, "I will ever 
lie to the Cunnel ! Dat, and nothing else, made 
me lose my shot." 

So when he went to the "Great House" that 



234 Old Plantation Bays 

night to get his tobacco, Sclpio told the Colonel 
about the Mallard: though he knew it would 
insure the safety of that splendid creature of 
the wild. 



XX 

A FOX AND A CONSCIENCE 

CONSCIENCE," the negro- minister had 
solemnly said in his sermon that Sun- 
day, "is sho' going to keep a man good'. 
It will make yo-' 'fraid to lie, or steal, or bear 
false witness." 

Uncle Ben, the old negro who had outlived 
his generation and* all those of his color who 
knew him and loved him, and who was shel- 
tered in his desolate age by Col. Henry Jocelyn, 
had listened intently to the sermon. The word 
conscience had moved him strangely. There 
was something just and pure about it. 

For the greater part of Monday, Uncle. Ben, 
with his gray head bowed and his huge hands 
hanging idly by his side, sat in his solitary 
cabin and mused over the message that had 
come to him. All his physical faculties had 
long since been impaired; but his mental fac- 
ulties remained perfectly clear. And as he 
pondered the sermon, nearly every word that 
the preacher had said was crystal clear to him. 

When at last, late in the afternoon, he took 

235 



236 Old Plantation Days 

his old battered cedar bucket and went through 
the great airy pine woods toward Horry 
Spring, where he got his daily supply of drink- 
ing water, the scenes that he had known and 
loved so long took on a new and more signifi- 
cant aspect. He felt that his attitude toward 
them, which in the past had been governed by 
a capricious will, should be governed only by 
conscience in the future. And for some reason 
the noble pines seemed to him far more noble 
this afternoon, the mellow winter sunlight far 
more benign and tender, and the saffron jas- 
mine flowers far more heavenly and pure. 

Buried in thought, he wandered beyond the 
spring, and had to retrace his steps. Blood- 
colored bay leaves lined the bottom of it; in 
the pool, the water was dark red, but when 
dipped up it was fresh and clear. 

From dewy retreats haunted by swamp 
thrushes and bullfinches, the little stream rip- 
pled on over its snowy pebbles into the dim- 
ness of the shadowy forest. On and on it 
flowed, through the hushed thicket of myrtle 
and through a dark swamp where cypresses 
rose with their silken crests, until at last it 
poured into the Santce River, just below the 
home of Colonel Jocelyn. 



A Fox and a Conscience 237 

Strene as was the flow of the little stream, 
its peaceful tide was not usually more tranquil 
than the life-tide in the heart of the genial 
and gentle old colonel. But on this day there 
was great trouble on the plantation. Nothing 
of so serious a nature had happened on the 
plantation since the blind mule Maria had died, 
five years before. The fact was that a fox 
had been taking heavy toll of the colonel's 
game chickens*. Five had been stolen before 
the loss had been- discovered. 

The chickens had been taken, of course, at 
night; the ragged remains of one especially fine 
cock had been found in the broom grass near 
the chicken yard. The intruder had had the 
boldness to devour his prey almost beneath the 
colonel's bedroom windows. 

The colonel's fox-hunting days were over, 
and his once famous pack of hounds had di- 
minished to a solitary creature, which, tooth- 
less and half blind, dozed in the sun all day, 
and which did not have heart to howl at the 
full moon at night. S'o the colonel was at a 
loss to know how to put a stop to the depreda- 
tions. Many of his best chickens, with a high- 
bred dislike of being cooped in a house for the 
night, slept out on the fences near the yard, 



238 Old Plantation Days 

and in low trees near by. Colonel Jocelyn 
half believed that any game chicken that would 
go to roost meekly in a chicken house, when it 
had several thousand acres to roam over dur- 
ing the day, had a strain of common blood in 
it somewhere. Fuming up and down under 
the big live-oaks, the old gentleman tried to 
devise some scheme for thwarting Master Rey- 
nard. As he paced up and down, Maj. Blythe 
Biddecomb, owner of the adjoining plantation, 
rode up. 

"What's the trouble, colonel?" he exclaimed, 
reigning in his mule Daphne with some show 
of flourish and effort, although the mule had 
been cropping the long succulent grass before 
the major ever ordered it to halt. 

"It's the worst luck, Blythe," answered the 
colonel, glad indeed to have some sympathy 
and advice. "Five of my finest games are 
gone — stolen." 

"Fox?" queried the major. 

"Yes," said the colonel, leaning wearily 
against the rotting stake-and-rider fence. "I 
reckon it must be a fox. I found some fresh 
tracks crossing the road down by the low gate, 
and my prize bronze-back cock I came across 
in the broom grass over there — half eaten. 



A Fox and a Conscience 239 

Maybe that old hound nosed him out before he 
finished his meal." 

"All gone in one night?" questioned Major 
Biddecomb, who liked to treat all subjects with 
legal precision. 

"I don't believe so," returned the colonel. 
"What would you do, Blythe?" 

"Fox gun," answered Major Biddecomb 
gravely, as if he were suggesting some unusual 
device. "It's the only sure cure for your kind 
of chicken thief. I got a gray fox three years 
ago with one, colonel, although he had al- 
ready cost me a couple of fine hen turkeys. 
S'pose you bring your old shotgun out, and I'll 
rig her up for you." 

Colonel Jocelyn got the old double-barreled 
gun from the house, and he and the major set 
the fox trap. They were as eager as two boys. 
First they piled some brush lightly in two rows 
to make a rough pathway from the thickets 
near by to the fence of the chicken yard. 
Then near the chicken house they tied the gun 
on a low box with the muzzle pointing straight 
down the pathway. The major, who was evi- 
dently familiar with the mechanism of fox 
traps, fastened one end of a long cord to the 
triggers, passed it round a smooth stake driven 



240 Old Plantation Days 

into the ground immediately behind the gun, 
and carried the other end some little distance 
down the pathway, where he passed it round 
two other stakes driven on opposite sides of the 
approach. The slightest touch on the cross 
cord would discharge the load from the gun. 

When the work was done, Major Biddecomb 
rode off homeward. He felt that he had spent 
a most neighborly and profitable afternoon; but 
he failed utterly to inspire the unresponsive 
Daphne with any of the kindliness of his heart. 
She only rolled her angular head from side 
to side, whisked her dry tail, and ambled off 
at a slow gait. 

On the other side of the plantation. Uncle 
Ben was thinking about conscience; he tried 
to fathom its mysteries, to realize Its beauties, 
to understand Its bleak austerities. The dogma 
of conscience hummed through his brain so 
insistently that he became a little tired of it. 
When he came home from Horry Spring he 
tried to forget all about it; but he could not. 
Again and again the questions of conscience as- 
sailed him. 

As he stepped down from a shelving, sandy 
bank into the main road, he slipped on a bare 
pine root and upset his precious bucket of wa- 



A Fox and a Conscience 241 

ter. He had to go back nearly a mile in order 
to refill it; he was alone and old, and the shad- 
ows of the December twilight were already 
darkening the mighty pines. When at last he 
reached his lonely cabin it was night, and his 
desolate home loomed solitary in the darkness. 
Sighing, Uncle Ben sat down on the hickory- 
block doorstep to rest; and not until then did 
it flash across him that it was Monday night, 
and that he had not a bite to eat in the cabin. 
He always got his week's allowance of food 
from Colonel Jocelyn's commissary on Mon- 
day. The commissary would now be closed, 
and he had eaten nothing that day except two 
half-burned sweet potatoes early in the morn- 
ing. He felt scarcely strong enough to go 
over to the plantation house. Yet he knew 
that Colonel Jocelyn and his daughters, the only 
friends that he had left In the world, would 
give him plenty to eat and a warm place to 
sleep if he would go over to the great house. 
He wondered vaguely why conscience, which 
he knew to be so great, did not give him aid 
and comfort now. 

After a little while the darkness gathered 
so deep, the barred-owls hooted so weirdly, and 
the rasping bark of the foxes in the old negro 



242 Old Plantation Days 

burying^ ground sounded so near, that the aged 
negro struggled painfully to his feet and shuf- 
fled off down the black road toward the plan- 
tation house. 

When he had passed the stables he saw the 
huge white bulk of the great house looming 
spectral and silent beneath the majestic live- 
oaks. But, alas, there were no lights visible ! 
He was too late; he had not been able to walk 
fast enough. More than ever was he alone 
now in the solitary night. But no, not alone. 
For as he stood there, — a pathetic figure of 
weariness and bewilderment, — he heard a great 
outcry in the darkness, and three proud game 
roosters, each trying to outdo the others, an- 
nounced confidently and importantly that it was 
eleven o'clock. Uncle Ben knew well enough 
where they were. He also knew how to lift 
one noiselessly from its perch; for, although 
he had never stolen a chicken, he had raised 
many of them. He was standing near the end 
of the path that led up to the chicken house. 
The roosters could hardly be more than twenty 
feet away. He even heard one of them clear 
its throat sedately as it settled down for another 
nap. 

The old negro took a step or two toward 



A Fox and a Conscience 243 

the sleeping chickens and then paused to listen. 
He heard one of his prizes stir on its roost; but 
there was now no other sound except the hoot- 
ing of a swamp-sequestered owl far away. On 
his hands and knees Uncle Ben crept closer 
until he was almost within arm's reach of his 
prey. 

The cross cord of the Jocelyn-Biddecomb 
fox gun stretched a foot ahead of him, straight 
across his pathway. He was crouched so low 
that the full charge of buckshot would prob- 
ably take its awful effect in his pitiful sunken 
breast. 

But a foot away from the deadly hidden 
string he halted. A deep pain was in his heart ; 
a keen and angry light seemed to flash a men- 
ace before his eyes. He sank back in the path, 
drew in a long breath, and looked up at the 
tremulous white stars. The words of the 
preacher rang in his ears: "Conscience is sho' 
going to keep a man good. It will make yo' 
'fraid to lie, or steal, or bear false witness." 

So this must be the doing of conscience! 
Clear and swift as a thunderbolt out of the 
pure, silent heavens, conscience had struck him, 
had pierced his heart, had brought him poign- 
antly face to face with the fact that he was 



244 Old Plantation Days 

being a thief — and thieving from the kindest, 
gentlest, most generous old gentleman on earth. 

Uncle Ben rose stumbling to his feet and 
passed on up the road that led to his forlorn 
cabin on the other side of the plantation. 

As he neared the cabin, he was startled to 
see a lantern swinging in the path and to hear 
voices laughing. As he emerged like a shape- 
less shadow Into the brightness, he saw to his 
amazement that it was Colonel Jocelyn and his 
two daughters. 

"Why, hello, Uncle Ben!" the colonel called 
heartily. "Where have you been this time of 
night?" 

"Oh, Uncle Ben, guess where we've been!" 
cried out Lucy Jocelyn. 

"We've been robbing your cabin. Uncle 
Ben !" cried Alice Jocelyn merrily. 

Still laughing joyously, they left the bewil- 
dered old negro trembling In the darkness. 

When he reached his cabin he found a cheer- 
ful fire burning on the wide hearth. On the 
chair, on the floor, and on the long wooden 
bench were great bundles done up in white 
paper. Uncle Ben could not understand it at 
all. He went from one package to another, 
and wonderlngly opened each. In one was a 



"A Fooj and a Conscience 245 

huge sugar-cured ham. In another was a box 
of ginger crackers and a peck of sweet potatoes. 
And in the last package — could he believe his 
eyes! — was a great game rooster, all ready to 
be cooked. 

Then Uncle Ben went down on his knees and 
covered his face with his hands. And while 
he knelt there, he remembered that to-night 
was Christmas Eve. 

The next morning Major Biddecomb rode 
over, and found the colonel by the gate. 

"What luck, colonel?" he queried. 

"Fine!" cried the colonel, vigorously wring- 
ing the major's hand. "I heard the shot about 
midnight. Didn't go out until this morning. 
'Twas a gray, not a red." 

"I'm mighty glad you got him," mused the 
major, stroking Daphne's scrawny neck. 
"There's no other way to stop a fox. He's 
an animal that has no conscience." 



XXI 

THE FAWN 

AST ATE of affairs had come to pass on 
the old plantation that, if tolerated, 
would completely crush Colonel Joce- 
lyn's hopes of abundant crops. It was in May, 
the vital month for growth in the South — the 
time when crops are made or lost. The colonel 
had a fine stand cvf corn; he had been spared 
both late frosts and high waters; and but for 
this new and unheard-of situation, he could now 
be counting on a good harvest. 

Every night for almost a fortnight deer had 
been coming into the fields and committing what 
Colonel Jocelyn hotly declared to be "maraud- 
ing practices." A big buck would lope over the 
rotting rail fence, strike the end of a long corn 
row, dew-drenched and succulent, and eat 
calmly down to the other end, only to start 
back on the next row. Two or three sleek 
does followed each buck. The colonel, who 
came up daily to the plantation from his sum- 
mer home on the seacoast ten miles away, esti- 
mated from the amount of depredation com- 
246 



The Fawn 247 

mitted that there must be ten or fifteen cul- 
prits. Night after night the crops of cow- 
peas, corn, and peanuts rapidly diminished. 

Once or twice Colonel Jocelyn hunted out 
the thickets on the edges of his field, and 
jumped many deer; but he was an old man, 
and the sun was very hot, and disheartening 
to strenuous effort, and the one deerhound that 
the colonel had was decrepit. He was so in- 
firm that often when he struck an excitingly 
fresh scent he would merely stand in one place 
and vent his feelings in a futile, emotional bay. 
Once the colonel actually walked up to two does 
that had been lying on the margin of the field, 
dozing in the high, warm broomgrass. 

One night he tied the old hound to a stake 
in the field near the border of the pine thicket, 
hoping that his presence might frighten the 
marauders away; but Prince Alston, one of 
the negro hands on the plantation, told the 
colonel the next morning that the dog had 
yelped all night, and that he must have had 
a bad scare. Sure enough, when his master 
went to untie him, he found him shivering and 
sick. Near by, he saw where a great buck had 
circled the hound, and pawed and stamped the 
black loam with his sharp hoofs. 

Colonel Jocelyn decided to take the law into 



24.8 Old Plantation Days 

his own hands. He had heard that one night 
hunt, if successful, would so intimidate the 
deer that they would ever afterward keep a 
safe distance away from the field where one of 
their number had fallen. Not another night 
should pass, resolved the colonel, before he 
would put a stop to his losses and his anxieties. 
He would stay on the old place that night. 

The full moon was fringing the broken forest 
line with light when Colonel Jocelyn, with his 
shotgun in his hand, left the house and walked 
down toward the cornfield that had suffered 
most. He did not feel exactly at his ease; 
for night shooting is always exciting, and espe- 
cially so to one who Is going beyond the law 
to kill deer. 

Passing beneath huge, shadowy oaks and 
across velvet strips of moonlit lawn, the colonel 
came at last into the corn, green-bladed, bur- 
dened with misty dew, lustrous In the mellow 
light. Far down on the edge of the black 
thicket he found a fallen pine, with dry pine 
trash underfoot and a screen of broomgrass 
in front. Here he sat down and waited for the 
deer. 

Meanwhile, from distant ferny solitudes, 
through the deep-gladed pine wood, into the 
dark depths of the thicket, a shadowy troop 



The Fawn 249 

of deer came toward the cornfield. A splendid 
old giant buck with towering antlers led them. 
Two slim does followed, and farther back 
came two peghorns and four does. On they 
came with wonderfully little noise for their 
size. The old buck led his band to the edge of 
the field, perhaps a hundred yards from where 
the colonel sat. There the leader stood; his 
tall horns gleamed gray above the fringing 
bushes, but his body was lost in the shadows 
behind. The shot was an easy one for a rifle, 
but hardly for an old shotgun; besides, the 
colonel's object was to shoot a deer actually 
at work in the field, so that there should be 
no doubt as to the purpose of the deed. 

But no creature in the woods of the South 
is so wary as a buck that carries great antlers. 
The proud head was lifted high in the breeze; 
the antlers shook Impatiently, and then stead- 
ied suddenly. For a second, as the keen nose 
detected the presence of the crouching colonel, 
the wise old "bayleaf" paused; then with a 
mighty plunge, he disappeared into the thicket. 

One of the does, startled and misunderstand- 
ing, darted into the field, where she crouched 
with ears thrust forward, eyes dilated, and 
slim legs set and tingling; but before she could 
make a jump, the colonel, knowing that he 



250 Old plantation Days 

would get no more chances that night, threw 
his gun to his shoulder and fired. 

He walked over to where the doe lay between 
two corn rows, with her white sides gleaming 
in the moonlight, and her lithe limbs, so fleet 
only a moment ago, now helpless and growing 
chill. He did not face the rebuke of the doe's 
great eyes; he went only near enough to see 
that she was dead. Then with a strangely 
heavy heart he walked through the dripping 
corn back to the house. 

But real and deep as was his regret over the 
occurrence, Colonel Jocelyn forgot it almost 
completely during the next few days. A far 
more exciting and pleasurable interest had 
come into his life — an event for which he had 
waited twenty years. At last the line tract of 
yellow pine, a part of the old Malbone estate 
that joined his land, was to be sold at auction. 

Although Jonathan Malbone, the eccentric 
owner, had never lived on the place, he had 
always flatly refused to sell it to the colonel, 
who knew and loved nearly every stick of tim- 
ber on it. However, after wretched health 
and more wretched temper, old Malbone died; 
and the heirs had put the property up for sale. 
It was to be sold at auction in Cummings vil- 
lage that Friday night; and when, on Friday 



The Fawn 251 

morning, Colonel Jocelyn rode through the 
village on his way toward his plantation, he 
heard some talk of the bidding. 

Herman Peckham, the German storekeeper, 
came down from his white porch into the road 
to greet and congratulate the colonel. 

"Your chance is coming to-night," said he, 
pointing with a fat thumb toward the school- 
house, where the auction was to be held. 

"Yes," replied the colonel, reining in his bay 
mare, "and I wouldn't miss it for a trip to the 
moon. Who's against me, Herman?" 

"Fred Baker's talking about it, and Ben 
Whitmore; but the man you must watch is 
young Lou Sands. I have Lou's acquaintance. 
He comes from Georgetown to bid for the 
Coast Lumber Company." 

"Well, come down and see the fun, Her- 
man," said the colonel. 

The journey that morning was short and 
happy. The pines were fragrant; the green, 
level woodland was starred with flowers; far 
off on the edges of the shadowy cypress swamps, 
where lush savannas lay in tropic luxuriance, 
flamed strange, sultry flowers; the pleasant 
sunlight filtered through the pine needles; and 
the birds sang joyously. 

At last, turning a bend in the road, he came 



252 Old Plantation Days 

within sight of the gate of the plantation and 
saw the great white house in the clearing be- 
yond. He shook the reins, and the mare broke 
into a light canter that soon brought him, 
flushed and smiling boyishly, to the line fence 
and the gate, which Prince was even then open- 
ing for him. 

Prince looked conscious and abashed. 

"Have they been in again, Prince?" the 
colonel asked sharply. 

"No, sah," answered Prince slowly, coming 
forward and laying his huge hand on the mare's 
mane. "But I find dat fawn," he added, with- 
out looking up. 

"Fawn!" ejaculated his master. "Did the 
doe I shot have a fawn?" 

"Must be," murmured the negro. 

"Oh, what a pity, what a pity!" The colo- 
nel shook his gray head sadly. "Is it dead, 
Prince?" 

"No, sah, but it's sho' gwine die." 

"Where did you find it? Where is it now?" 

Prince told him that as he was following 
a raccoon track into the thicket behind the corn- 
field early that morning he had come to a little 
open, sunny space beneath the pines, where he 
had found the fawn lying, too faint to strug- 
gle. And there certainly it must have been 



The Fawn 253 

since Colonel Jocelyn killed its mother; for it 
is well known that when a doe leaves her fawn 
and goes away — sometimes for miles — to feed, 
her little one will not stir until her return. 
Prince also told his master that he had put the 
fawn on a rug in the dining-room, and asked 
in the same breath whether he could be spared 
that day to go across the river to a great 
"jubilee picnic." 

The colonel nodded his assent, put sudden 
spurs to his mare, and galloped across the field 
to the great house. Under the big live-oak 
before the wide piazza he dismounted, slipped 
off the saddle and bridle, and leaving the mare 
to graze, ran up the broad steps. 

The fawn lay where Prince had left it, 
stretched on a worn rug on the floor, with its 
great brown, pitiful eyes mutely appealing. 
It was young, with starry white spots on its 
glossy golden coat. Its shapely legs seemed 
no larger than the colonel's fingers; its deli- 
cate hoofs were soft and pearly. It tried to 
move and lick its lips, and its sunken sides 
heaved with fright and the eagerness for food. 

The colonel knelt down by it and stroked 
its back. He sat on the floor and took its head 
into his lap. He looked into its wonderful 



254 Old Plantation Days 

eyes, and saw in them fear and yearning af- 
fection. Yet it was only after the tiny creature 
had licked his hand with its rough tongue that 
he realized its crying need. 

He brought some milk, and again taking the 
fawn's head in his lap, fed it with a spoon. 
In spite of the strangeness of a silver spoon 
in its mouth, it drank eagerly; but it seemed 
too weak to respond to the nourishment. It 
gasped and struggled with each mouthful. It 
shuddered and nuzzled up to the colonel. 

Meanwhile the afternoon sun was stretching 
the pine shadows across the wide fields, and a 
yellow shaft of light stole into the hushed room 
and lay at the colonel's feet. It roused him to 
a realization of where he was and what he was 
doing. It was Friday, and four o'clock in the 
afternoon. Yes, and on Friday at six o'clock 
the coveted Malbone tract was to be sold to 
the highest bidder. The fawn had so dis- 
tracted Colonel Jocelyn's mind that it seemed 
years since he had heard of the sale; but grad- 
ually he came to himself, and his intense desire 
to purchase the timber returned. 

And here indeed was a plight ! With every 
negro on the place gone to the "jubilee picnic," 
with no way of taking the poor little fawn 



The Fawn 255 

home with him, and with the sale for which 
he had prayed for twenty years faking place 
within two hours, what was he to do? 

He could not count on Prince's return ; for 
among the uncertainties of Southern life is a 
negro's return from festivities of any nature. 
The fawn apparently could not live unless 
nourished every few minutes. The village was 
almost an hour's ride from the plantation; if 
he were to reach the sale on time, he must be 
starting. But there lay the helpless fawn ! 

The colonel grew angry, and then fl«ushing 
with shame at his anger, laid a gentle hand 
on the tremulous little creature. Easing its 
head softly to the rug, he rose and tiptoed to 
the doorway. Under the big oak he saw the 
mare feeding. He would just have time to 
ride home comfortably, put the mare away, 
and go to the sale. 

He should be there at six o'clock sharp; for 
with the strange inconsistency of a sleepy vil- 
lage, official events in Cummings were usually 
held on schedule time. So seldom did any- 
thing of importance happen there that those 
concerned were likely to be in a hectic hurry. 
Lou Sands was probably there now. Fred 
Baker would be on the spot when the time 
came. And if Colonel Jocelyn were not on 



256 Old Plantation Days 

hand, the sale would proceed and the land be 
lost to him. 

Turning back into the room, he saw the 
fawn's great, appealing eyes looking at him. 
He could not leave the poor little creature to 
die. The Malbone tract would have to go; 
but he could not be such a brute as to kill the 
mother and leave her baby to perish. 

So he went back to the fawn; and it was 
glad to have him come. Once more his hand 
rested tenderly on its silken flank, and he could 
feel its heart beat more quietly and its quiver- 
ing muscles relax. It nestled close to him, and 
nuzzled against his sleeve. 

An hour passed, and the shadows on the 
plantation fields were very long. It was nearly 
six o'clock, and the sale would soon begin. It 
was hard to wait twenty years for a chance and 
then lose it! If Prince would only come, he 
might still get to the sale; but Prince was far 
away. Six o'clock came and went; then, after 
what seemed an age, seven. The colonel had 
lost; but the fawn was safe asleep in his arms. 

Shortly after eight o'clock, Prince's long, 
melodious whoop sounded through the hollow 
pine wood. Laying the fawn in a big arm- 
chair, the colonel took a hunting horn down 
from a craggy pair of antlers, stepped to the 



The Fawn 257 

door, and blew a mellow note. Prince came 
running toward the house. 

"Saddle the mare, Prince," his master said. 
"Saddle her quickly!" 

The negro, half-frightened by the colonel's 
manner, caught the mare and brought her up 
to the steps, ready. 

"Prince," exclaimed the colonel, "I have 
kept that fawn alive, and it's in there now in 
the big armchair by the fireplace! Wrap it up 
and take it over to your house. Keep it warm 
and feed it milk every hour in the night. And 
if you let it die after all Pve done — " 

Prince could not hear the threat that came 
over the colonel's shoulder as he galloped down 
the darkened avenue. The mare was fresh, 
and she was homesick for the tang of the salt 
air. As she cantered briskly along the level 
road, the straight-stemmed trees flitted by in 
the dusk. Now she tore over a hollow-sound- 
ing bridge, now she swept into the cool dark- 
ness of a bay-branch crossing, and now she clat- 
tered through a long, shining water slash. The 
colonel knew that there was the barest chance 
that he might yet be in time. 

When, still urging the lathered mare, he 
emerged from the woods and came up on the 
high, hard-shell road, the lights were twinkling 



260 Old Plantation Days 

In less than ten minutes Lewis came running 
back toward the house. Hampden saw him 
coming and, quickly taking down his rifle from 
the gun rack in the hall, stepped out to meet 
him. 

"What is it, Lewis?" 

The panting and disheveled man, with eyes 
wide, leaned weakly against the little rose- 
garden fence. 

"A wild dog," he said, "was killin' the 
sheep. He done kill five before I come. He 
done kill the young ram and four ewes. He 
gone now. He run off when he done see me." 

"Whose dog was it?" 

As Hampden put the question, his searching 
look discovered in the face of Lewis something 
that he did not like. The negro's eyes were 
on the ground. When they were lifted, they 
did not meet the white man's eyes, but roamed 
back toward the pasture where the tragedy had 
occurred. 

"I dunno who dog, sah. When I come up, 
he run off." 

But the tone was not convincing, and the 
averted eyes told their story. Hampden knew 
that the negro was hiding something, but he 
decided to push him no further for the mo- 
ment. 



The Secret Killer 261 

"Where are the sheep?" he asked. 

"Two by Dark Pond., sah, and three in the 
graveyard." 

The planter said no more, but started imme- 
diately for the pasture. His swift walk took 
him down a fragrant avenue, arched with vast 
and somber live-oaks, then along a stretch of 
sandy road, and then into a winding, thicket- 
bordered path that brought him within sight 
of Dark Pond. 

On the borders of that spectral woodland 
pool, ringed with gray cypresses, from the 
branches of which pendant moss hung like ban- 
ners of silence, he found the two sheep. Their 
pitiful bodies were huddled against the groups 
of cypress knees. The killer's work, the 
planter saw, had been very savage. Farther 
on, in a densely thicketed tract where low and 
humble mounds showed where the plantation 
negroes of an earlier day were sleeping, Hamp- 
den came upon the other three sheep. He also 
found a fourth one that Lewis had not seen. 
One of them had been the handsomest young 
ram in the flock; another was a gentle ewe 
that his children had petted. On her torn neck 
was still a shred of the faded blue ribbon that 
his little daughter had tied there with laughter 
and delight. 



262 Old Plantation Days 

Leaving that melancholy scene, the planter 
came out into the pasture road. The blank 
silence oppressed him. It was after midday, 
and wild life should have been moving round 
for the evening meal; but nowhere was there 
sound or movement. The drove of sheep, he 
knew, would be huddled, terrified, in some cor- 
ner by the creek, or in some far thicket of the 
pasture. And the secret killer? 

In a community that is sparsely settled it 
is not hard to pick out a sheep-killing dog. 
Hampden knew all the dogs in the pinelands 
near the plantation; and he knew that there 
was one dog only that could kill sheep as his 
sheep had been killed. 

What he saw at the pasture crossroads con- 
firmed his opinion. In the damp sand were the 
fresh tracks of a very large dog; and the planter 
knew from the character of the prints that the 
maker of them had gone along guiltily. If not, 
why did the tracks show that the creature had 
paused to look back and to listen, had broken 
into a wild run, and had then paused again 
with tense craftiness? Hampden had been a 
woodsman too long not to be able to read the 
meaning of those signs. 

"It's that gray brute that belongs to West 
McConner," he said to himself. "He's a ne- 



Tlie Secret Killer 263 

gro with whom I prefer to have no dealings; 
no one has yet proved that it was not West 
who killed those timber cruisers in Wambaw 
Swamp. Now I know why Lewis didn't recog- 
nize the dog: he is more afraid of West than 
he is of any one else in the world; and all the 
negroes have the same dread. Moreover, this 
is the dog that West swears by; it's the same 
one that caught a buck last summer on the edge 
of the river." 

But, convinced though he was, the planter 
wanted more evidence. He did not care to 
approach the half-wild negro of sinister repu- 
tation without a clear story — not because he 
had any fear of West, but because he did not 
wish to bring such a charge against any man's 
dog unless he had proof. That he did not 
have; but as he stood alertly in the road he 
believed that he could get it. 

The sun was aflame in the crests of the som- 
ber pines as the planter reentered the lonely 
region of deep thickets, old fields, and sandy 
wastes grown to broom-sedge and young pines. 
With a certain feeling of eeriness he passed 
along the silent road, which was shadowy in 
the dusk of pines and oaks. Again he came to 
Dark Pond and looked out over its cold, gleam- 
ing waters. Making a round of the pasture, he 



264< Old Plantation Days 

at last returned to the crossroads, beyond which 
lay the wide pinelands. Here, he thought, he 
would take a stand and wait. The killer was 
sure to return ; and probably he would come 
by this familiar route. Whether he would 
come before night was another matter; but here 
at least Hampden would wait — Hampden and 
his rifle. 

Over the solitary forest the sun slowly sank. 
A faint breeze touched the tresses of the pines 
so that they murmured and waved. Far off 
in the pinelands the planter heard a slight move- 
ment: he saw a deer, coming forth in the late 
afternoon to roam delicately. Even while he 
was looking at the graceful creature, another 
and a far different form caught his sight. It 
was quite near him in one of the paths through 
the broom-sedge that led into the road. He 
saw the gray bulk, the heavy and cruel head, 
the sharp ears set at an angle of craftiness; it 
was West McConner's dog coming back to his 
kill. 

With slow, precision the planter lifted his 
rifle. He was a dead shot; and if ever he had 
wanted to score cleanly, this was the moment. 
But, alert as he had been, the gray brute had 
been more alert than he. Hampden found his 



The Secret Killer 265 

rifle sighted against a blank space in the wood- 
land path. A moment later he saw the dog 
far off in the woods, running wildly — running 
with that uncanny abandon and speed that is 
the unfailing sign of such a creature's guilt. 

Now that Hampden was certain of the kill- 
er's identity his plan of action was clear: he 
would go straight to West McConner's house 
and demand the dog. 

A short walk brought him to the negro's 
lonely cabin, which stood in a brown cotton 
field. To the planter's rap on the door there 
was no response. He waited a moment and 
then turned back toward the road. There, to 
his surprise, he saw West McConner standing, 
with Buddy, his little boy, beside him. 

Hampden spoke to him quietly but firmly. 
On the negro's face and over his form there 
came a certain tense alertness, a guarded cun- 
ning, that revealed the spirit of the man. 
West did not look like a dangerous black man; 
he was no giant, scowling of face and men- 
acing of attitude. On the contrary he was a 
small mulatto. His face could easily assume 
an expression of blandness; his voice was mild. 
But although his stature was below the me- 
dium, his muscles had a certain ruggedness that 



200 Old Plaiilalion Da//fi 

showed their fitness. His shirt and trousers 
hung loosely on him; his head and his feet were 
bare. 

What Blake Hampden had to say West Mc- 
Conner received in silence. At last he said in 
tones of quiet assurance, "That ain't my dog, 
sah; I think you must be mistaken." 

"I know the dog," said the planter, "and he 
was in my pasture not half an hour ago. He 
was on his way back to the sheep he had killed, 
or else to kill others." 

"No, sah, that dog was lookin' for Buddy 
and me. We been down the road, lookin' for 
my cow, and that dog was followin' and lookin' 
for we. Ain't that so, Buddy?" 

The boy, who was about five years old, stared 
up with wide eyes. "Yes, sah," he answered. 

He had learned when a question from his 
father demanded an affirmative reply. 

"You see, sah," West went on, "my dog 
didn't kill no sheep. That must be a dog from 
the settlement down the river." 

"Now, West," said the planter in a matter- 
of-fact tone, "I know your dog. I know what 
he did to that buck last summer. It takes a 
certain kind of beast to do that, and to do what 
was done to my sheep. More than that, W^est, 
I know you. I'll give you until to-morrow 



The Secret Killer 207 

morning to bring that dog up. I I'c must be 
killed." 

"1 will send the dog away," said the negro 
sullenly, "but you mustn't kill him." 

"No — no sending him away except on the 
longest journey he's ever taken. It's unlawful 
to keep a dog like that. \i 1 kill him, 1 wili 
give you a good dog; but you are to bring liim 
to-morrow morning without fail. You under- 
stand, West?" 

The negro would not meet the planter's gaze. 
Nor would he make any answer until Mampden 
had turned on his heel. Then the planter 
heard him mutter: 

"If you ever kill my dog — " 

To that the white man paid no attention. 
He had laid out a course of action, and he in- 
tended to follow it : if West did not bring forth 
the killer in the morning, it would then be time 
to try conclusions with the negro. 

Into the pasture Hampden returned. He 
decided that, to avoid further trouble for that 
day at least, he would round up the sheep and 
drive them into the stable lot near the house. 

But he could not find the frightened sheep. 
His search took him into almost every part of 
the great pasture. He crossed and recrossed 
paths, penetrated thickets and traced the river 



268 Old Plantation Days 

banks. It was now dusk. Suddenly, coming 
out on a twilight path, he was astonished to 
find himself face to face with Buddy. 

The child had always been a favorite with 
Hampden. His bright ways and his quaint, 
elfin manliness had made a strong appeal to the 
planter. 

"Why, Buddy, what are you doing here?" 

"Pa say I is lookin' for a cow," he answered 
with the pathetic craft of childhood. 

"Ah! Have you seen your dog?" 

"No, sah." 

"Well, it's time you were starting home, 
Buddy; but if you see my sheep, call me." 

The child turned away up the path. The 
planter followed him curiously until, coming 
to an old field where grew scrubby pines and 
oaks, he lost sight of the strange little figure. 

" I suppose," he mused, as he turned into the 
road leading home, " that West sent that 
child here to find that brute of a dog. It's a 
wonder, too; for if there's anything by which 
West swears, it's that little boy of his." 

The planter had gone scarcely a hundred 
yards when a sound that chilled his blood broke 
the twilight silence of the misty pasture. It 
was a dog's wild and rasping bark, desperate 
with excitement. It was back in the old field 



The Secret Killer 269 

that he had just left. Moreover, he heard the 
heavy, thudding running of the terrified sheep. 

Grasping his rifle by the middle, the planter 
ran swiftly down the road. When he reached 
the border of the old field, he paused. Not far 
off he saw a sheep galloping wildly; then he 
saw others. The stampede was coming his 
way. He knew what was behind them. He 
would get his shot. 

Just then, almost in front of him, he heard 
a small voice call, "O Cap'n! O Cap'n! 
Here's the sheep!" 

It was little Buddy, calling him by the name 
of affection that the child used. 

The planter advanced, with his rifle cocked. 
He could see the child now. The sheep, in the 
wildest distraction, were rushing past. Soon 
the killer must appear. 

"You, there!" called a small voice. "What 
you doin'?" 

Hampden knew that the child saw the dog, 
and that he was trying to stop him. In a 
moment he saw a great gray form clear a bush 
and leap at the child. The killer, caught in 
his bloody guilt, had turned on his human dis- 
coverer. It was misty there in the old field, 
and the planter had had enough excitement to 
shake his aim; but at the crack of the rifle the 



270 Old Plantation Days 

gray form was hurled to earth. With him 
went the little child. 

Hurrying forward, Hampden found the dog 
dead. The child was unhurt, although his 
shirt was torn open at the neck. As he was 
lifting the boy in his arms to carry him home, 
a form loomed up in the mist; it was West 
McConner. 

"I have killed your dog, West," said Hamp- 
den, pointing to the killer lying stretched on 
the ground. 

The negro made no reply; but the planter 
thought he saw his shoulders heave slightly. 

"What have you to say about it, West?" 
asked Hampden. 

"Cap'n ! How can I say anything?" cried 
West in a voice broken by emotion. "I done 
see the whole business happen. I'se glad." 

And West McConner wept. 



XXIII 

SCIPIO MAKES A SHOT 

THE great Carolina ricefield lay steam- 
ing under the August sun. Standing 
on the high dividing bank that 
stretched across the field, one could look a 
mile in every direction, and his gaze would 
meet nothing but the golden grain which in a 
few weeks would be ready for the sickle. The 
field had been flooded and the water came 
within a span of the rich drooping heads of 
the rice. It had been drawn from the full 
yellow river which flowed sluggishly past the 
eastern bank of the field. To the west, stand- 
ing dark against the pale blue sky, was the 
great forest of longleaf pines. Between the 
pines and the river there had been no peace 
that day. Since the first pink and white col- 
ors had come in the east, since the first breath 
of sea-wind had been borne up with the flood 
tide from the coast at dawn, a small army of 
negroes carrying huge muskets had patrolled 
the ricefield banks, and the almost incessant 
firing had told of their vigilance. It was the 
271 



272 Old Plantation Days 

ricebird season, and they were the bird-mind- 
ers. 

The ricebird, reedbird, bobolink or ortolan 
is, in keeping with his variety of names, a sad 
glutton. When his breeding season is past he 
leaves the river-meadows and the warm 
marshes along the coast of the Middle-Atlantic 
States, and, about the middle of August, comes 
South. The rice is "in the milk," then; that is, 
it has headed out and has begun to turn down, 
but the grain is still soft. The birds flock by 
millions. Over the ricefields at twilight, when 
they are settling in the river-marsh for the 
night, the whole sky will be darkly alive with 
them; they themselves form a moving sky. 
In rice planting, the minding of birds is a 
regular, and often a very heavy, expense. 
An unguarded field would be a total loss. It 
is quite fortunate, therefore, that these pests 
are sanctioned on the tables of epicures. 
Every year thousands are sold in the local mar- 
kets or shipped North. One may buy either 
"killed" or "caught" birds, the latter being 
higher in price because of their almost perfect 
condition. They are captured in the marshes 
at night by negroes. 

With a burlap bag hanging over his shoul- 



Scipio Makes a Shot 273 

der and a light-wood torch in his hand the 
negro hunter will bog for hours through the 
foul marsh mud, braving miasma, alligators, 
snakes of all kinds, and hordes of malarial mos- 
quitoes. With little or no trouble he covers 
with his huge hand one bird after another that 
is either too dazed or too fast asleep to escape. 
The little warm body will feel itself gently 
lifted; perhaps it will try to snuggle down in 
the gaunt brown hand, — but not for long; the 
negro's thumb and forefinger close down on 
the bird's neck with a sudden snap, and the 
poor unfortunate's head flies off into the marsh. 
Then the fluttering body is stuffed down into 
the dirty bag. And it all takes only a second ! 
When the hunter goes home, he may take per- 
haps ten, perhaps twenty dozen ricebirds with 
him. These he will sell for enough to buy 
himself a quart of the vilest whiskey, all of 
which he drinks without delay. Then he goes 
home and beats his wife. But his reputation 
in the market as a bird-hunter remains unim- 
paired. 

When the flight of ricebirds begins, there will 
be found in every plantation commissary many 
kegs of black powder and bags of number lo 
shot. This is portioned out to the negro bird- 
minders. Perhaps out of twenty minders, there 



271 Old Plantation Daj/s 

will be only one real hunter. Sometimes these 
minders are put on platforms, sometimes on 
the intersection of check-banks, where the cor- 
ners of four fields are controlled. There are 
many ways of rousing the birds, perhaps the 
most effective, after that of killing a goodly 
number of them, is to lire a flattened buck- 
shot, that whirs like the wings of a hawk, over 
them. \Yhen the minder happens to be a boy 
too young to be trusted with a gun, he will 
get on a platform or on a wide clear space on 
the bank and bawl a wahwoo lash of immense 
length, whooping the while to experience an 
unmistakable dime-novel thrill at the sound of 
his own manly voice. Also the excitement thus 
aroused helps him to forget the unspeakable, 
unescapable heat of the sun. And the longer 
he works the harder he works, for the birds 
seem to get more and more tame as the season 
advances. 

When they first arrive after their long flight, 
they are very thin and ravenously hungry, but 
a little wary and shy. Their note is lively but 
prosaic, with a very occasional trill of exqui- 
site song. As their visit lengthens, and as, 
with every long, long summer's day they gorge 
themselves with the succulent nourishing rice, 
not only their appearance but their voices 



Scipio Makes a Shot 275 

change. From a slim, trim, bright-eyed bird, 
the size of a field sparrow, this wandering 
plunderer is transformed into what Poe would 
have called "an ungainly fowl," — dull, corpu- 
lent, incautious. From a cheery, airy, "pink- 
pank" tenor, he descends to a blase, phlegmatic 
"ponk-ponk" bass. All his charm and spirit- 
uality are gone. If shot at any height he will 
burst open when he strikes a hard ricefield bank. 
He is loth to fly from any one. He does not 
even fear a man like Scipio, the bird-minder. 
Therefore he is lost. 

Scipio was, and had always been, a poacher. 
He was also, when occasion demanded, like one 
of Sir Roger de Coverley's hounds, a noted liar. 
But he was a good bird hunter. What if he 
did set mink-traps and shoot wild ducks and 
turkeys on posted land all winter? When the 
bird season came he was indispensable. His 
steady hand and eye covered a multitude of 
misdemeanors, as his gaunt and powerful frame 
carried him unharmed through all winds and 
weathers. He was a negro beside whose ebony 
skin all the darkness of "Chaos and eldest 
Night" would appear pale. He stood six feet. 
The beauty of his spare and muscular body was 
finely outlined under his ragged and loose- 
hanging clothes. It would not have been a 



276 Old Platifation Days 

wholesome mental exercise to speculate as to 
the size of shoe Sclpio might wear. No quick- 
sand could have taken iiim down unless he went 
head first. But these are idle fancies. It is 
time to abandon them to see Scipio make a shot. 
Early in the morning he had come down to 
the field and had chosen a far corner near the 
river as his stand for the day. He had made 
for a buck-cypress tree on the bank, and here 
he had put down his little tin bucket of dinner 
in the tall shading grass and had left his cur- 
dog to mind it. Then he had loaded his mus- 
ket. It was a tedious operation. Into the long 
rusty iron barrel he poured four drams of 
coarse black powder that he took from a dirty 
tobacco bag. This he wadded down with a 
superfluous part of his attire that he detached 
from his person in a wholly disinterested man- 
ner. Then he topped the load with about 
two ounces of mustard-seed shot. Again the 
operation for the removal of the unnecessary 
portions of his raiment -was accomplished. 
Finally, from some obscure pocket in his under- 
shirt, he took out the precious metal box of 
percussion caps. With much grave delibera- 
tion he selected one, and settling it on the nip- 
ple, let the hammer down with great care. All 



Scipio Makes a Shot 277 

that had been in the early morning. Over half 
the day had passed and the same load was in his 
gun. He was waiting for a shot. Scipio was 
no fool. Those other negroes might waste 
their powder and shot bang-banging all day, 
but he was a hunter. He was waiting for a 
shot. The negro nearest him on the bank, who 
gloried in the name of George Washington 
Alexander Burnsldes Green, had been shooting 
at frequent intervals all day. But Scipio knew 
that he hardly had birds enough for supper, 
and his scorn of Wash was great; but it was 
supreme when his own chance for a shot came. 
Standing in the shade of the cypress, he had 
seen when the birds began to light near him. 
First one, from a bush on the margin, lit off 
in the field; then perhaps twenty or thirty, 
frightened from some coffee grass by the 
sailing maneuvers of a marsh-harrier hawk, 
joined the lone adventurer; then a passing flock 
dropped down and swelled their number; then 
they seemed to pour in from every direction; 
one hundred, two hundred, five, a thousand; 
one, three, five thousand, and a continual stream 
pouring in. From far-off corners of the field, 
restless flocks rose and came to join the my- 
riads. 



278 Old Plantation Days 

"If Cousin Scipio eber git in dat crowd," 
muttered Wash Green excitedly, "I sho' sorry 
fo'dembud!" 

Scipio, marking the gathering with an eye 
that had made him the hero of all the little 
pickaninnies on seven plantations, grinned to 
himself; then, slouching his old greasy cap over 
his eyes, he bent under the cypress limbs. Into 
the hot, evil-smelling, almost deadly water of 
the ricefield, teeming with all kinds of reptilian 
life, he stepped. The percussion cap on his 
musket glistened in the sunlight as he stooped 
cautiously into the rice and began his long 
stalk of the birds, two hundred yards away. 
He bent low in the rice, parting it before him 
with his musket and his left hand. He sank 
into the mud and water over his knees. The 
foul stifling air, hot, and alive with tiny green 
grasshoppers, rose in his face. He must 
breathe it. He must keep below the level of 
the rice if he was going to make a shot. Every 
thirty yards or so he would, with infinite cau- 
tion, peer over the rice to see if the birds were 
still feeding and to get his bearings adjusted. 
Yes, they were still there; and every time he 
looked he saw many more still lighting. 

The negro crept on. Now he stumbled into 
a quarter drain, just catching himself in time 



Scipio Makes a Shot 279 

to keep his powder dry; now he jerked his 
hand suddenly away from within a few inches 
of a blunt-tail, deadly cotton-mouthed moccasin. 
On he crept, always keeping below the level 
of the rice. He was going to make a shot. A 
good shot would contribute as much to his right 
to do nothing as three or four days' hard work. 
He crept on. 

Now he came to a few stragglers on the bor- 
ders of the host; plump, yellow, bright-eyed 
birds that he might have caught with his hand. 
But he did not stop there. He moved forward, 
almost imperceptibly. Now he heard them 
feeding; the endless chirring and chattering of 
their bills against the rough rice grains; the 
occasional little song; the soft, contented, full- 
fed note. Now he was well upon them, among 
them. Before him, in the rice covering not 
over half an acre, were thousands of birds. 
The long black barrel of the musket came up 
slowly, slowly over the rice; then came the 
negro's head : the musket was leveled stead- 
ily. 

"Who-o-o-o-o-e-e!" shouted a great voice. 
There was a thunder of wings, the roar of a 
musket that belched fire at every seam, and the 
echoes of whose detonation reverberateci far 
up and down the river; then the lifting of a 



280 Old Plantation Days 

volume of smoke from the field, the myriad 
frightened "pink-panks" from the scattered 
hurrying birds in the sky, and the solitary fig- 
ure of the hunter as he made his way slowly 
toward his game. He first found "the trail," 
the line of his shot. Then he caught and de- 
spatched the wounded and gathered the killed. 
It took him so long that Wash Green, waiting 
on the bank, had conflicting thoughts. Perhaps 
Scipio had not made much of a shot after all, 
he thought. But the canvas sack at Scipio's 
side was bulging out; it was full to overflow- 
ing. 

As he started back toward the cypress tree 
he saw Wash standing there; so he took his 
time. As he drew near, Wash, leaning over 
the coffee grass on the margin, called: 

"Hey, Cousin Scipio! How you mek out?" 

Scipio stopped and looked up. He shaded 
his eyes with his hand. Scipio was sometimes 
deceitful. 

"Bro' Wash," he said loudly, In answer, "I 
dunno w'at Is de matter wid de bud. I sho' 
do po'ly, — po'ly!" he added with much em- 
phasis and deep disgust. 

Wash Green accepted Scipio's word and went 
back to his stand with a generous feeling of 
sympathy in his heart that he felt he could af- 



Scipio Makes a Shot 281 

ford to so mighty a one who had fallen. When 
Scipio saw him going he grinned with the de- 
light of a good liar. Coming up under the 
cypress tree, he pulled out three birds and 
threw them to his dog. Then he sat down be- 
tween the cypress roots with his legs stretched 
out in a patch of sunshine to dry, and counted 
his birds. There were twelve dozen and five. 
He had made a shot. 

Far down the bank Wash Green fired his 
last load disconsolately at three birds in line 
on the margin. As he picked them up he felt 
exceedingly sorry for Scipio. But Scipio was 
loading up his musket for another shot. 



XXIV 

A PAIR OF MALLARDS 

AFTER several years of disastrous ex- 
perience as a rice planter on the San- 
tee River, Maj. Blythe Biddecomb, 
who had returned to his "stale, flat and un- 
profitable" law practice in Charleston, wrote 
his friend, Col. Jocelyn, that he was homesick 
for a pair of rice-fed mallards. Now, when- 
ever any one mentioned game to the colonel, 
he took it as a challenge to his skill and as a 
high opportunity for gratifying his generosity. 
So the day after the major's letter came he 
started down the river in a little dugout cypress 
canoe for Murphy's Island at the mouth of 
the Santee. 

Col. Jocelyn took with him his fine old Eng- 
lish gun, a few boxes of 4's, a small basket of 
provisions, and — more for companionship than 
for help — Three Cents, a little negro, who, 
although he had a Christian name, had long 
worn that mercenary title. And his bright 
ways and his diminutive figure went far toward 
establishing the fitness of it. 

•282 



A Pair of Mallards 283 

Col. Jocelyn and I hrcc Cents were great 
"chums." When the boy was four years old, 
he had remarked stolidly to his father, the 
coachman, "Pa, you didn't currycomb dat horse 
right." Word of this rebuke came to the 
master of Mayfield, and he chuckled in great 
glee, and decided thenceforward to make Three 
Cents his chief counselor. 

For several years this comradeship between 
the white-haired old gentleman and the picka- 
ninny had continued; in fact, the colonel be- 
came quite dependent upon Three Cents, and 
the boy looked to his patron for everything. 

So it happened that they set out together in 
the canoe, and headed for the mallard para- 
dise — there where the great river lost itself 
in the greater sea, and where, by day and by 
night, clouds of wild ducks, wintering on the 
coast, rolled over the shimmering beaches and 
the yellow river mouth toward Bird Bank. 

It was a twelve-mile paddle down from the 
plantation; but the tide was ebbing, and both 
occupants of the canoe were swinging cypress 
paddles; so the long, slim craft shot swiftly 
by the shadowy banks, by tall, sighing growths 
of tawny marsh, by pebbly strands where the 
tide washed languidly. 

Once, standing spectrally transfigured against 



284 Old Plantation Days 

the pale afternoon sky, they saw the grim, 
bleached skeleton of what had once been a 
proud house that fire had devoured. Then 
they passed a prosperous place where, in happy 
contrast to the recent scene, a turpentine still 
was sweetening the air with soft aromatic fra- 
grance. Then the plantations ceased and there 
began the long waste stretches of marsh that 
extended clear down to the mouth of the river. 

When they had at last landed on the back 
beach of Murphy's Island, they repaired to the 
best of the duck ponds, which was situated a 
good mile across the island. On their way they 
were aware of the long lines of ducks that fre- 
quently darkened the strip of sky above their 
reed-grown pathway. 

Coming at last cautiously to the edge of the 
pond, where the colonel expected to hear a 
great clamor of feeding ducks, they were met 
by a telltale silence. Then, far across the 
stretch of water, they saw a bald eagle poised 
on a dead tree; there would be no duck shoot- 
ing where the monarch ruled. 

"Look here, Three Cents, that old rascal has 
every mallard within a mile flying for his life !" 
the colonel exclaimed. And to himself he mut- 
tered, "Blythe's dinner won't fly here this eve- 
ning!" 



A Pair of Mallards 285 

"Maybe, sah, we might find Cedar Island 
mo' bettah, sah," the little negro ventured. 

Col. Jocelyn did not answer; but from the 
hopeful look that stole into his face you might 
have guessed that Three Cents had solved the 
problem. He looked quizzically at the sky, 
with its few ragged clouds scudding eastward. 
He had fully made up his mind; but on matters 
of hunting the colonel always thought it -wise 
not to accept another's judgment too hastily. 
Hesitation implied doubt, doubt implied 
thought and knowledge, and the old gentleman 
was not above the gentle vanity of wishing to 
be regarded as learned. "Well," he said at 
last, "there isn't any place to sleep on Cedar 
Island, and here we could spend the night in 
the old clubhouse; but, at that, I guess Cedar 
Island is our only chance." 

"Yes, sah," echoed Three Cents, as if the 
idea were his master's, "dat's de only chance." 

Retracing their steps, they soon came to the 
canoe, which they launched and headed straight 
across the river for Cedar Island — a long, low 
sea island, with heavy delta marshes behind 
and with a wooded point that faced the ocean. 
It was a famous place for ducks, but because 
of its remote situation sportsmen rarely visited 
it. 



280 Old PJaniaiion Bays 

As the line of cedars on Murphy's Tslantl 
sank into the sea, Col. Jocelyn and Three Cents 
gained fair headway toward their goal; but 
behind tiiem the ashen clouds in the west were 
hiding the low sun. Moreover, the paddle 
across the river was a long one and diflicult m 
the cross sea that was running. The colonel 
was on the middle seat; his henchman swung 
his paddle manfully from the stern. The go- 
ing was not very rough, but with every stroke 
they felt the lightness of their craft and the 
majestic power of the sea that paced beneath 
them. 

When they were halfway across, the colonel 
knew that he had made a mistake in trying to 
reach Cedar Island that night; Three Cents 
had known the same thing some time before, 
but he had not expressed his doubts. There 
seemed to be no immediate danger; but it would 
be dark before they got there, and the west 
wind over the salt water was growing very 
cold. 

With those thoughts in his mind, the colonel 
glanced over his shoulder with a smile intended 
to cheer Three Cents; but the bullet head of 
the negro was buried between his shoulders, 
and his paddle was Hashing doggedly from the 
murky water to the chill air and back again. 



A Pair, of Mallards 287 

"He's all right," the colonel assured his con- 
science, which wa^ accusing him of bringing a 
child out into danger. 

The sun had now set and the sweep of the 
ebb grew slower. Tint by tint the colors faded 
from the sky, and the counterglow in the east 
died swiftly. Over the river the incoming 
ducks began to fly. The dull roar of the surf 
on the outer beaches sounded insistently. The 
shore lines faded, vanished — and it was night. 

"Boss,'' asked Three Cents, through lips that 
were stiff with the briny cold, "is we headed 
right? I b'lieve, sah,"" he added respectfully, 
"we is too far down de ribber." 

Had the colonel shared that opinion there 
would hav*e been less cause for apprehension; 
but the old gentleman thought they were too 
far upstream. That meant that they did not 
know where they were. Above them they could 
hear the whistling music of. wild ducks' wings. 
Vaguely, to the south and east, they heard the 
booming of the surf. Darkness was before 
them and behind them; and darkness covered 
them. 

The colonel, old hunter that he was, began 
to feel uneasy — chiefly on account of the pres- 
ence of Three Cents. An hour before it had 



288 Old Plantation Days 

seemed simple to reach either island; but now 
the blessed sight and touch of dry land seemed 
indeed remote possibilities. 

There was no moon. There were no stars. 
The canoe seemed to have changed its course; 
and the high, smooth wavea that she was now 
riding moved with the strength and dignity that 
they gather only in the ocean. The cold salt 
spray began to break over the gunwales, and 
it froze as it fell. The two paddles were al- 
ready coated with it. The wind was slowly 
rising, and with it came that bitter, bitter sea 
cold that cuts into the marrow. For the first 
time In his life Col. Jocelyn felt powerless to 
fight the forces that appeared to be leagued 
against him. His hands were almost as stiff 
from cold as the paddle. His legs and feet 
were losing their feeling. 

Suddenly, with a jerk of decision, he laid 
his paddle along the thwarts in front of him 
and, steadying himself on the gunwales, turned 
himself In the boat so that he faced Three 
Cents. Dimly he could make- out the pitiful 
little form. The colonel's strong arms reached 
out, took the negro child by the shoulders and 
lifted him down into the bottom of the boat. 
He had to wrench the paddle from the boy's 
hands; it was frozen to the palms. 



A Pair of Mallards 289 

"Oh, please, boss," the little fellow chat- 
tered, "don't l^mme freeze ! I 'speck I is a 
goner dis time; but I ain't sorry, sah, dat I 
come with you." Then Three Cents nestled 
up between the colonel's knees. 

Colder grew the wind, and the waves broke 
heavily against the boat. Three Cents moaned 
and trembled. There was nothing to cover him 
with. Col. Jocelyn lifted one of the little ne- 
gro's hands and slipped it up his own sleeve. 
"Can't let the child die!" he muttered. 

With that he fumbled with the buttons on 
his coat, loosed it, and, quivering in the pierc- 
ing cold, slipped it off and laid it over his little 
comrade. 

Under his coat Col. Jocelyn wore a low- 
necked jersey. Through that the stark wet 
wind cut like a saber. He tried to grip his 
paddle in his numb hands ; if he could only get 
started, he thought, he might be able to warm 
up. But his hands, coated with ice, refused to 
respond to his will; so blindly he tried to steer 
the canoe, and tried to keep her before the 
wind so that the waves would not swamp her. 

Three Cents had dropped off to sleep, but he 
was still moaning and shaking; and once he 
shook with a violent chill. The colonel tried 
to fix the coat tighter about the boy, but he 



290 Old Plantation Days 

could not manage It very well. Then he tried 
to cover the little negro's feet with the loose 
straw in the bottom of the boat, but the child 
woke up, crying. Clinging to the colonel's 
knees, he begged him to make a fire in the 
boat! 

For answer the colonel unbuttoned his jer- 
sey, slipped it off, and wrapped it closely about 
the little black boy whom he was literally giv- 
ing his life to save. 

The child felt instant and grateful relief — - 
the man, acute agony. The fiend of cold 
seemed to lay icy hands on his very heart. 
The wind felt scorching, and he thought him- 
self intolerably burned; but he slowly realized 
that he must be freezing to death. There in 
the darkness, there in the treacherous inlet, he 
would meet his end ! Antietam or Gettysburg, 
he said, would have been better than this. 

Then a monster, blacker than the night, rose 
out of the water before them; it rushed down 
upon them; and the bow of the canoe ran high 
on the shore — of Murphy's Island I 

Somehow, he forgets how, the colonel and 
Three Cents crawled to the old clubhouse, 
where they built a roaring fire. And before 
its huge comfort and cheer they ate the provi- 
sions from the basket, and slept. 



A Pair of Mallards 291 

On the way home the next morning the colo- 
nel shot two mallards, and he sent them, with 
his regards, to Maj. Blythe BIddecomb. 

Two days later Maj. BIddecomb was enter- 
taining at dinner. 

"Mallards?" he replied to a question con- 
cerning their number on the Santee. "There 
are millions of them there, sir. Now, my dear 
personal friend, Col. Henry Jocelyn, sent me 
this pair; and I'll warrant you, sir, that he 
wasn't on the river long enough to make a 
shadow. In fact, for a man so robust as I am, 
mallard shooting is just a little tame; but 
Henry, dear fellow, could never stand the cold 
and exposure as I can, God bless him!" 



XXV 

GHOST POINT 

ALTHOUGH Daniel Bonneau had) 
that had once been an "open-sesame" 
■proud I luguenot ancestry and a name 
to the court of I'Vance, he himself did not pre- 
tend to high and worldly things. He wished 
to be known and remembered simply as a nat- 
uralist, and as one who had added to the knowl- 
edge of science. He attributed his investigat- 
ing turn of mind to his famous great-great- 
grandfather, Admiral Achillc Bonneau of the 
French navy, who had been an authority on 
navigation and on the denizens of the deep. 

The Carolina coast, where for generations 
his people had made their home, was rich in 
a variety of forms of wild life, and Daniel 
lived continually in what was a paradise for 
him. His fine old plantation was one of the 
most picturesque — and ill-kept — places along 
the seaboard. It was sheltered on three sides 
by the whispering darkness of the great long- 
leaf pines; while toward the east the view 

292 



Gliost Point 293 

opened on Bull's Bay, a wide sheet of marsh- 
bounded water. Beyond the bay were glisten- 
ing sea-islands and the mystic sea-horizon. 
Bonneau's nearest neighbor was five miles 
through the woods, and Charleston, the near- 
est town, was fifteen miles off. 

The naturalist was alone in the world, for 
he had never married, and his few distant rela- 
tives lived far away. Yet he was surrounded 
by companions. The woods on all sides were 
vocal with birds; the marshes harbored still 
others. Deer sometimes grazed down to the 
paling-fence of his back garden, and squirrels 
darted here and there in the great trees that 
surrounded the house. Occasionally an old 
white-nosed otter would swim up the creek that 
flowed past the gray oaks in front, and Bon- 
neau would study him from behind the shelter 
of a climbing rose. 

Birds flock to a friend, and Bonneau's gar- 
dens were inhabited by colonies of songsters. 
About the vine-covered, wood-embowered house 
they sang all day, and made the twilight more 
tender and the dawn more triumphant. In 
the jasmine and honeysuckle vines on the porch 
mocking-birds and brown thrushes had built; 
in a hollow in one of the cedar supports of the 



294 Old Plantation Days 

piazza a black-capped titmouse had found a 
home. Over the hedges of box, in a great 
elm, orioles had hung their swinging cradles. 

If Bonneau wearied of the study of birds, 
there was always the bay to consider; for the 
bay, ten miles across each way, serried by white 
shell banks, haunted of sharks, shadowed by 
the wings of innumerable shore-birds and sea- 
birds, was a field for a naturalist to spend his 
life in. And Bonneau had spent many of his 
days there, rowing out through Harbor Creek, 
past Eagle Hummock and Ghost Point, and as 
far as the margin of the deadly inlet rip, sweep- 
ing like a green serpent round the edge of Bull's 
Island. 

One morning Bonneau, hoping to stalk a peli- 
can on the bay, left his comfortable porch, drew 
his oars out from their shelter beneath the 
steps, and strode down to his little fishing-boat 
moored to the decrepit wharf. As he glided 
swiftly down the narrow salt creek, his eyes 
were eagerly searching water and shore. Be- 
fore he had gone far he had seen several brown 
minks scuttling away from the sedgy margins, 
a few rare and beautiful Spanish curlews, many 
shore-birds, and one splendid old bald eagle, 
fiercely harrying his wide domain. 

Before long the bottom of the boat was lit- 



Ghost Point 295 

tered with curious shells, with nests of black- 
birds and marsh sparrows, and with odd pieces 
of driftwood that he had caught in the cloudy 
eddies. At last, urged by the long oars, the 
little boat shot out into Bull's Bay, where in- 
stantly the wind freshened and the world wid- 
ened. Daniel dipped his oars and turned his 
head to scan the bay. 

A little beyond him lay Ghost Point, a stark 
shell bank, just showing above the low ebb. 
Farther on, the White Banks glistened in the 
sun; and farther yet, on the verge of the sea, 
wild white horses, sun-crowned, snow-plumed, 
raced along the outer reefs. On each side of 
the tawny inlet were sea-islands. One was bar- 
ren and bare, supporting only a sparse growth 
of harsh sea-grass; the other, wider and longer, 
was heavily wooded with red cedar and pine. 

Bonneau turned once more and looked to- 
ward his home among the friendly trees; then 
toward Eagle Hummock, a low, sandy, cedar- 
grown hill rising from the intervening marsh. 
He thought he would visit the hummock that 
day for curlew eggs, but that would be on his 
way home. So he buckled to the oars, and the 
bateau continued to pound from crest to crest 
of the lazily rolling waves. 

Soon he came abreast of Ghost Point, the 



29G Old Plantation Days 

strange shell formation that was visible only 
at low water. There was a tradition that all 
those who had lost their lives in the waters of 
the bay came to shore on Ghost Point, where 
on moonless nights they lamented their fate; 
hence the name of their rendezvous. The sin- 
ister appearance of the place bore out the tra- 
dition. Now, as the gray shape came into 
Bonneau's vision, he rested on his oars, gazing 
at it intently. Then he gave a sharp exclama- 
tion, whirled the boat, and rowed rapidly to- 
ward the bank. 

What he had seen interested him more than 
even an ivory-bill pelican would have done. 
It was a peculiar pile of white shells, much 
whiter than those of the bank itself. Bon- 
neau's knowledge of the coast told him at once 
that the inevitable hole behind the snowy pyra- 
mid must be the home of a stone-crab. "Me- 
nippe mercenaria !" he muttered proudly to 
himself, as he bent over the oars. 

A stone-crab is one of the several hermits 
of the crustacean family. His body is shaped 
in general like that of other members of his 
species, but is proportionally much smaller and 
much higher. His claws, his distinguishing 
feature, are shaped like a lobster's, and grow 



Ghost Point 297 

to great size, having, too, a powerful vise-like 
grip. His legs are strong and spidery, so that 
he can hold himself firmly in position while 
seizing his prey. His hole is invariably in a 
shell bank, below the high-water mark. 

When the tide recedes, the crab retires into 
his cavern, which is just the size of his body 
and two or three feet deep. There he rumi- 
nates and digests his dinner until the flowing 
of flood-tide water into his doorway tells him 
that it is time to forage again. He crawls to 
the mouth of his hole; and there, anchored in 
the swaying tide by his tough black legs, he 
thrusts with his powerful claws, snapping in 
small fish. 

When the shadow of a creature that he fears 
floats by, he crouches in his hole, his claws 
folded against his breast, or else drawn in close 
and defiantly open. Few fishermen have the 
courage or the patience to try to dislodge a 
stone-crab; but such an opportunity was what 
Bonneau had for a long time been wishing. 

His rocking boat grated on the shells and 
came to a stand. Unshipping his oars, he laid 
them along the thwarts, rose, tossed the claw 
anchor high on Ghost Point, and stepped out 
on the reef of sinister name. Before the stone- 
crab's hole, on hands and knees, Bonneau in- 



298 Old Plantation Days 

vestigated the situation. As the opening was 
about nine inches across, the crab would be a 
very large one. 

Tepid, cloudy water stood in the hole a few 
inches below the top. Occasionally a small 
white bubble rose slowly to the murky surface. 
Evidently the crab was at home. 

Bonneau scraped about the mouth of the 
den with an old conch-shell, but the bank had 
been pounded solid by the ceaseless beating of 
the waves. He went back to his boat and got 
an oar, with which he tried to pry away the 
shells compacted together and guarding the 
creature's fortress. But it was like trying to 
dig a post-hole with a wheat stalk. The oar 
grated and bent; the tough ash fibers cracked 
and strained; but save a few splinters of shell, 
no damage was done. Bonneau laid the oar 
down and began to roll up his sleeve. As he 
did so he watched the movement of the tidCj 
noting the slack in its flow. The turn was not 
far off. 

With his left arm supporting his weight, 
Bonneau dipped his other into the cloudy hole. 
He wanted the crab, and he was going to have 
him; and this was the only way to get him out. 
He must reach his hand down, take the crea- 
ture unawares, grip him so that he could not 



Ghost Point 299 

open his claws, and jerk him out. But since 
the holes are deep, the stone-crabs strong, and 
always crouching with their claws outward, the 
plan is a precarious one. Bonneau found the 
water warm, and his cautious fingers followed 
the passage downward and backward under the 
crest of the bank. 

Twice he jerked his hand back as it touched 
a pointed shell, but returned it swiftly, half- 
angry with himself. He knew that he could 
tell the crab when he felt it — the unmistakable 
smooth roundness of the formidable claws, the 
sharp spikes on their ridges, and the sinewed 
sutures of the joints. He would have to grasp 
his prey between his thumb and forefinger, and 
drag him forth while his claws were pressed 
together. Once out of the hole the crab would 
attempt no escape; he would offer sullen re- 
sistance. 

Farther and farther into the invisible cav- 
ern Bonneau's bare arm crept. The pale wa- 
ter lapped sluggishly against his flesh. The 
hole was so deep that he was obliged to rest 
his weight on his elbow. Finally he lay flat 
on the reef, his arm in the stone-crab's den up 
to the very shoulder. His feet were in the wa- 



300 Old Plantation Days 

ter, — for the flood had set in, — and he glanced 
about to see how high it had risen. As his 
eyes turned and his hand shifted slightly, he 
felt a sharp shock of pain, and a grim and 
terrible clutch gripped him about the thumb 
and through the palm of his hand. The great 
stone-crab had him fast. 

Bonneau jerked back, but the stone-crab gave 
only slightly, just enough to permit the man to 
lacerate his arm against the sharp shells that 
lined the hole. The creature had him in such 
a way that he could not use his thumb in an at- 
tempt to crush its body; and his arm was so 
deep in the passage that he could get no pur- 
chase with it. He tried to squeeze his other 
hand Into the aperture, but it was too narrow. 
He peered over the reef, and saw clean foam, 
fresh from the sea, rolling in on the crests of 
the flood. 

A broad-winged sea-gull circled over him with 
a discordant cry. Bonneau gritted his teeth 
and set his weight against the creature in the 
hole. The socket of his shoulder crunched 
and the arm stretched, but the dread grip 
at the bottom of the murky water was 
in no way loosened. Bonneau was a brave 
man, but he groaned to think of what he had 
come to. 



Ghost Point 301 

While he thus lay prone on the reef, the wa- 
ter crept over his feet and stole up his legs. 
The frayed edges of long waves, sea waves, 
broken in part by the inlet and in part by the 
White Banks, washed over his lower body. 
Far beyond the bank a great gray pelican 
flapped above the water with lazy, powerful 
strokes; and just beyond the bank Bonneau 
saw, with a sickening gulp in his throat, the tall, 
keen fin of a tiger-shark ripping the water as 
it circled. 

His boat was lifted from the sand, swung 
round to the lee of the bank, and there tossed 
impatiently against her hawser. The man 
turned his body in the water and lay at another 
angle; but it only added the pain of a twisted 
arm to that already torturing him. The crab 
had broken the flesh of his hand, and his heavy 
claws were dully tearing it. The salt scorched 
the wound cruelly, and the deep pain was mad- 
dening. 

Little was now to be seen of Ghost Point. 
A green, rolling wave, with a lordly crest that 
smoked misty spume against the low sky, broke 
its back over the shell bank, and took a gasp- 
ing revenge in drenching Bonneau. Strange 
little elfin creatures, perhaps the spawn of 
barnacles, crawled about his feet and ankles. 



802 Old Plantation Bays 

His boat looked far away, so greatly had the 
water-width between them been increased. 

The tide was now up under his chest, and 
once a low, sliding wave rippled like a velvet 
paw under his throat and chin. Madly he 
wrenched at his suffering hand; but the agony 
made him sick, and he sank back limply into 
the water whence he had partly risen. Another 
wave raced up on the reef and snatched the 
oar that lay beside him, retreating like a threat- 
ening beast, curling a dark lip to show a white 
fang. 

Bonneau had once been employed by the 
coast survey to assist in sounding Bull's Bay, 
and he knew the depth of the water between 
every reef, and on every reef at high tide. Up 
to this time he had taken quiet pride in his 
knowledge; but now he wished that he knew 
nothing of the bay. For an insistent and burn- 
ing memory showed him this, written In his 
black, official note-book at home: 

"Ghost Point, three hundred yards east-south- 
east from mouth of Harbor Creek. On direct 
line between blazed cedar on Eagle Hummock 
and Bull's Island lighthouse. Bad reef for 
boat of any draft. Shows at low water. 
Depth of water on Ghost Point at high tide, 
four to six feet." 



Gliost Point 303 

Perhaps the facts of his death would never 
be known, for there were creatures waiting for 
him to die. He saw the big tiger-shark sail- 
ing off at some distance. A huge hammer- 
head, with one bulging eye out of the water, 
slid craftily by the bank. Several dog-sharks 
were ripping the water near the boat, and the 
fin of a second tiger rose and then sank near 
the reef. Out of the glassy crest of a foam- 
less wave the bald and benign head of a big 
sea-turtle appeared, surveying the scene amia- 
bly. 

A bursting white wave washed over Ghost 
Point and blinded Bonneau. And once again, 
for a last time, while his whole body throbbed 
with the fierce agony, he labored against the 
little animal that was drowning him. But he 
labored in vain. The tough prehensile legs of 
the creature were locked and braced in the 
socket of the hole, and no leverage that the 
man could bring to bear would move him. 
Bonneau's exhausted body was now floating or 
rather rolling here and there in the eager, hur- 
rying tide. 

The tide lipped the stone-crab's hole and 
flowed warmly under Bonneau's armpit. He 



304 Old Plantation Days 

felt a slight shift of the grip on his hand, a 
cautious relaxation. A wild joy thrilled the 
man's heart and tingled through his whole 
frame. He knew what was happening in the 
dreadful hole. He eased himself up with his 
left arm and drew his right arm out, ever so 
softly and gently. The crab still had him, but 
the crab was moving. Slowly, slowly they 
came, the lacerated hand and the creature that 
had done the work. 

Finally Bonneau got his elbow out, and he 
could stand the suspense no longer. With a 
cry of triumph, much resembling a shriek of 
despair, he jerked his arm clear of the hole 
and sprang to his feet. From his bleeding 
right hand there hung a huge stone-crab, sullen 
and menacing. 

Bonneau leaned over until the creature rested 
on the water-swept shell; then he crushed him 
savagely — too savagely for a naturalist — with 
his heel. But the claws, deeply embedded, had 
to be pried open. 

The flood, the power that had lured the crab 
from his den, was now flowing freely over 
Ghost Point, and the green water eddied about 
the last visible fluke of the little anchor. Bon- 
neau pulled the boat toward him and clam- 
bered in, sick and dazed. And as he cleared 



Ghost Point 305 

the water, the tall fin of a great tiger-shark 
shot high out of the waves, as the gray harrier 
lunged fiercely along the edge of the bank. 



XXVI 

THE SILENT CHAMPION 

THE great diamond-back rattlesnake lay 
under the green shade of the dense 
tiirkeyberry bushes that fringed the 
edge of the vast and lonely swamp. The July 
air was as clear as a perfect white jewel, with 
faint hints and mists of opaline lights along the 
horizon. A light wind, blowing inland from 
the near-by sea, mingled deliciously the spicy 
odors of the far salt marshes and cedar groves 
with the hushed and aromatic fragrance of the 
pines. 

On three sides the mighty pines arose; and 
to the westward, as if marginal to lands of 
mystery and wonder, loomed shadowy cypresses 
in the solemn sorrow of perpetual mourning. 
The growth of the underbrush in the woods 
was not high, but it afforded thick cover. 
Here and there a sultry red orchis, dreamy 
and Oriental, or a cool blue larkspur lighted the 
prevailing green of the background. There 
were huckleberries, too, hanging in indolent 
dim clusters; gall-berries, twinkling in their 
306 



The Silent Champion 307 

dark, glossy foliage like jet beads; and prickly- 
pears, with their heavy, thorny leaves, their 
tawdry, flaming blossoms, and their uninviting 
green friut. Shady and cool it was under these 
bushes, and a pleasant retreat from the after- 
noon sun. 

The huge rattlesnake, however, was not at 
his ease. He had the day before shed his skin, 
and had foolishly crawled nearly half a mile 
in his new coat, following the elusive trail of 
a family of swamp-rabbits. Now he was sore, 
irritable and wakeful. He lay in a restless flat 
coil, his broad, malignant head resting on a 
gray tuft of sphagnum moss, his tail, with its 
triumph of sixteen rattles, moving nervously 
over a little space of white sand. 

His gorgeous coat, black, brown and of a 
tawny gold, with all the colors new and bright, 
was undoubtedly exquisite; but its beauty was 
awful. Its charm was like the false lure of 
evil, sinister and deadly. Six feet he meas- 
ured from tip to tip — a diamond-back of the 
swamps, probably the most venomous and the 
most morose of all rattlesnakes. His baleful 
yellow eyes glittered in their shallow sockets. 
His broad, angular head was malignant In de- 



308 Old Plantation Days 

sign as well as In appearance. Over the curved 
and cruel mouth the lips were drawn and pale 
— sarcastic they seemed, terrible they were. 
His great body arched away from his head 
until It reached the size of a strong man's arm; 
there It tapered rather gradually to his blunt 
tail, tipped by the dry-whispering rattles. 

Among the various forest tones, there was 
one vibrating sound that stirred the sullen heart 
of the snake to dangerous malice. It was the 
thud of a solitary woodsman's ax, ringing into 
the deep heart of a tall yellow pine that stood 
about thirty yards from where the snake lay. 

The man had been at work on the tree since 
noon, and his relentless strokes were fast tell- 
ing on the stately monarch. He was deep on 
the back cut now, and was glancing about to 
see where he would turn to clear himself from 
the fall. There was an old sheep-path through 
the turkeyberries, running at right angles to 
the purposed line of the cast, that looked to 
him best. 

Presently, as he looked up, he saw the proud 
crest shiver and sway. Then he heard a crack 
at the bottom, and grasping his ax by the hilt 
he sprang lightly away down the blind path, 



The Silent Champion 309 

looking back over his shoulder. The pine 
shuddered through all its splendid height, sank 
majestic from its lofty place in the blue heav- 
ens, whirled with sickening speed, spun on its 
axis, and plunged straight downward on the 
bewildered man ! He had but time to turn 
with a smothered cry when a far-reaching limb 
struck him, and he was driven heavily to the 
earth. 

The end of the limb had been dashed deep 
into the ground just a few feet beyond where 
the man lay; its heavy length was pinning him 
to the ground. Flis right arm was crushed 
close in to his body. His weight must have 
fallen on his left elbow, for the arm was broken 
near the shoulder. He fainted when he tried 
to move it. 

When he opened his eyes a minute later, 
somewhat recovered from the first shock, he 
grew sick through all his strong frame, and 
only his indomitable will kept him from faint- 
ing away again. For there in his lordly spiral 
coil, with his head and his singing rattles on 
their fatal level, the great diamond-back rattle- 
snake was poised, a scant two feet away, ready 
to strike. 

At the first downward rush of the tree, 
the snake had turned in flight, to be halted 



310 Old Plantation Days 

by the violent fall of the man, that seemed a 
threat of attack. 

The dreadful beauty of the snake, the help- 
lessness of his own position, together with the 
fleeting memory of his happy safety but a few 
moments before — were these not enough to 
draw the blood from his heart and send it in 
a dull, hot flood into his head in one wave of 
shuddering pain and weak anguish? 

He knew rattlesnakes well enough to realize 
his situation. If he stirred, if he closed his 
eyes, perhaps, the monstrous reptile would 
strike him — full in the face, most likely. The 
broken arm that he had moved was in a posi- 
tion that caused him excruciating pain. He 
shifted it ever so softly, and the fierce, wide 
head shot down swiftly; but it withdrew with- 
out striking, its eyes glittering and its evil hiss 
torturing the unfortunate man with menace 
and with delayed cruelty. 

He was so young a man to die ! He had but 
the year before cleared for himself a little 
farm in the vast, solitary pineland, and there 
was happy with his wife and their little child. 
He was their whole world, as they were his. 
He prayed with a feverish mind, all the while 
gazing fixedly at his murderer, which seemed 
to gloat over his helplessness. 



The Silent Champion 311 

Supreme upon the topmost bough of a near- 
by hve-oak, a joyous mocking-bird sang a few 
cool notes to the crystal air; then, hearing the 
rattlesnake, he paused tremulously, turned his 
head on one side, made certain of his fear, and 
flew wildly away. A shy wood-thrush let his 
inquisitiveness lead him near the buzzing rat- 
tles; then he, too, darted away through the 
brush. 

So the man and the reptile were left alone. 
In those fleeting, delirious seconds the victim's 
mind wandered strangely. He remembered his 
school-days and a book that his teacher had 
lent him to read out of class. It was all about 
forlorn princesses, and the desperate fealties 
of their champions. How brave and hardy 
those champions were ! How he had longed to 
be one, longed so far back in those early days ! 
Ah, for a champion to save him now ! But 
there was no sound of a rescuer approaching; 
there was but the insistent, cruel song of the 
rattles. 

The man had sometimes thought of death, 
and the thought had never awed him as it did 
now. For how was he so to forecast the years 
as to know that remotely, with no fond heart 
near to cheer him with its faith and to light 



312 Old Plantation Days 

him with Its love, he was to meet his end, alone, 
and in nameless agony? 

The poor woodsman's eyes filled with tears 
as he thought of his wife, with their baby in 
her arms, searching for him. He thought of 
their finding him, and at this his tears ceased 
suddenly; for there are imaginings too deep 
for tears to relieve. They would find him — 
he shuddered on the brink of the vision. 

Now his thoughts, although covering so wide 
a range, were almost instantaneous. A last 
imagining haunted him most vPvidly. His 
loved ones would come early to look for him. 
They had been coming down the road to meet 
him of late, the wenther had been so fine and 
the baby so well; and the most precious mo- 
ments of his day were when he bore the little 
fellow homeward on his broad shoulders 
through the falling twilight. They would come 
to-day to meet him; not finding him, they would 
search. What then? The snake might still 
be near. He marked the fresh coat, and knew 
that the reptile was more dangerous than usual 
because of it. If he might only warn them! 
If they might only know of their peril, and 
beware ! 

He tried to think what rescuers had ever 



The Silent Champion 313 

come to him out of silence. Surely there were 
many. Love, prayers answered, the marvel- 
ous secrets from the green, gigantic books of 
nature — all these had come. But where was 
now a champion to defend him? 

The agony of his tortured mind was plainly 
visible on his face, and the rattlesnake saw the 
change. Tenser grew his body. The mon- 
strous head drew back, flattening; the rattles 
sang shrilly. And the man, his face bleak and 
gray, praying brokenly for his wife and little 
child, closed his eyes as if in death. 

The rattles whirred wildly for a second; 
then they ceased abruptly. There was a sound 
of scaly movement. Tbi man's eyes unclosed, 
and unclosed on an amazing sight. The great 
rattlesnake, with an expression of positive 
terror about the eyes and mouth, had dropped 
swiftly from his coil. Now he glided furtively 
by the man, never noticing him. Every motion 
was a fearful one. No longer was he supreme; 
cowed he was, and a fugitive. 

The man guessed the rattlesnake's pursuer; 
but because of the height of the bushes he did 
not see him until he was quite near. With a 
swift and rocking motion, a king-snake came 
hot on the rattler's trail. His bright eyes 
darted this way and that, glittering with the 



314 Old Plantation Days 

fierce love of battle. Not a sound he made 
as he sped onward. Silent and swift and sure, 
he was as a very answer to prayer itself. 

His size was not so great as that of the rat- 
tlesnake, but his skin was far more beautiful. 
Wide bands of pure black and white circled 
the muscular lithe body, built for strangula- 
tion; for that is his form of attack on the rat- 
tler, one of his inveterate enemies. To man 
he is harmless. 

The speed of this silent champion was won- 
derful. His graceful body swayed into curves 
that shot him forward along the thin paths 
through the underbrush. Near where the man 
lay he paused momentarily, glanced curiously 
at the pinioned form, and darted silently on. 

Struggling backward, the woodsman worked 
himself clear of the binding limb. He had a 
very strange feeling as he stood up, as if he 
were dead and risen again; but he knew that 
he was safe. As his burning eyes swept the 
near bushes, they caught sight of two flashing 
bodies wrapped in gorgeous battle, swaying, 
struggling, twisting, strangling. The great 
thunderbolt had fallen upon the rattler, and 
no rattler that ever grew would be a match 
for him. 

The woodsman ventured near and saw the 



The Silent Champion 315 

end of the battle. In a few minutes the beau- 
tiful demon with the tawny coat of black and 
gold lay lifeless in the powerful coils of the 
king-snake. 

So the man came home safely, but for his 
broken arm; the rattlesnake died in fair fight 
with the king-snake, and the silent champion 
had triumphed. 

You would think that the woodsman might 
never want to recall so terrible an experience, 
but he does. Often he thinks of his peril and 
of his deliverance, and he trusts wonderfully 
and more and more in the great silent forces 
that surround us — love, mercy, and prayer. 



XXVII 

SHADRACH AND THE FIERY FURNACE 

SOMETIMES the telephone line between 
the cottonseed-oil mill and the superin- 
tendent's house would not work; then 
the great whistle on the mill would blare across 
the marshy flats, calling raucously for the mas- 
ter. It was not a pleasant summons, especially 
in the dead of night. There were nervous peo- 
ple living on the edge of town who declared 
that they had been terrified into believing it 
the trump of doom. But Charley Piollet, the 
superintendent, knew that it meant no such fan- 
tastic crisis; it was merely a leaky valve in one 
of the cylinder-heads, or the misadjustment of 
a linter, or, at worst, it might mean that one 
of the negro workmen of the night-shift had 
been injured. 

It was two o'clock of a rainy January morn- 
ing. Dead asleep lay Charleston. Gray mists 
shut out the harbor, the two great rivers be- 
tween whose arms the city slept, the brackish 
marshes and mud-fields north of the town, on 
which the black bulk of the mill loomed, and 

316 



Shadrach and the Fieri/ Furnace 317 

the dark, mighty forests to northward. Mists 
and rain everywhere, bhirring the light, drip- 
ping from wires and trees and houses, softly 
curtaining the windows of the sleepers. It was 
a night for heavy sleep; but Charley Fiollet 
was awakened by the futile tinkling of the tele- 
phone bell. It showed that some one was call- 
ing him, but couldn't get the message through. 
A moment later the muffled, long, husky shout 
of the great whistle told its story. It was call- 
ing for one out of all those who were sleeping. 

Piollet slipped quickly out of bed. In five 
minutes he was dressed. Fifteen minutes after 
the whistle had blown, his little car drew up 
before the mist-shrouded mill. The superin- 
tendent's tall form bulked huge in the fog. He 
strode into the office. , 

"Well, Dave?" he asked quickly. 

The night foreman was a negro, small and 
brown and middle-aged. He personified faith- 
fulness. He and Piollet together had run the 
oil mill for twelve years; and between them 
there was a perfect understanding that found 
its expression in their mutual trust and good 
will. 

"I had some trouble with a man, sir," Dave 
Mullin replied. "I couldn't exactly handle 
him; and the other boys — I didn't want them 



318 Old Plantation Days 

to get into It, Sorry to call you, Cap'n, but I 
needed you." 

"Who is this fellow? Is he white?" 
"No, sir, he's colored. He's never been in 
these parts before. He must have dropped off 
an A. C. L. freight." 

"What did he try on you, Dave?" 
"He said he wanted a job in the mill at the 
best figure we paid, and he wanted it in a 
hurry. I told him to go on about his busi- 
ness; but he began to stir up trouble among 
the boys, asking them what they were getting, 
and saying that they could get twice as much 
in Mobile or Pittsburg or at Hog Island." 
"Where's this walking delegate now?" 
Piollct had slouched off his overcoat and was 
drawing on his overalls. Then he fitted on his 
head a tight little rubber cap. It pays to take 
a few precautions when one is moving about 
among the whirling belts, roaring linters, and 
gurgling presses of an oil mill. 

"He asked me if I was the boss," Dave went 
on. "I told him I was just the night foreman. 
Then he said he'd make the boss give him the 
job he wanted the minute he came." 

"Been drinking?" shot out Piollet, not sure 
but that Dave had called him without much 
reason. 



Shadrach and the Fiery Furnace 819 

"Yes, sir. And, Cap'n," and the little 
brown man came close, a light in his eyes that 
showed both affection and apprehension, "I 
ask you to be careful with that stranger. Take 
your gun out of the safe, please, Cap'n," Dave 
pleaded. "This man is a bad actor." 

In his heart Dave Mullin had not a doubt 
but that the man who stood before him could 
give a good account of himself. Charlie Piol- 
let had the height and the strength and the 
courage. His huge shoulders, his massive 
chest, his long and powerful arms, and his 
broad, peculiarly masculine hands had not come 
to him by chance. Living a hardy life and toil- 
ing for years with machinery had made him 
what he was. Moreover, the direct approach 
he made to men and his straight steady way of 
looking at them were steps toward mastering 
even the most untractable of those with whom 
he had to deal. Now, when his foreman, so- 
licitous for his safety, mentioned the pistol, 
Piollet began to smile deprecatingly. 

"Dave, the company made me buy that 
thing, but I never expect to use it. Come along 
and see the fun. Where is this friend of 
yours?" 

Still protesting under his breath against Piol- 
let's lack of caution, the foreman led the way 



320 Old Plantation Days 

to the engine room. Down a long platform 
they passed, where great windows opened on 
the ceaseless activity of the oil mill. Through 
one of these the superintendent's quick glance 
saw, under the suffused light of the long room, 
the gleaming bodies of half-naked negroes toil- 
ing about the giant cookers. They had been 
trained to work with machinery, and they had 
learned that it would not wait for men to take 
their time; therefore they moved about with an 
ease and precision and good-natured timeliness 
that was worth watching. From chutes that 
ran across the mill, high up, the cotton seed 
that had had its thorough grinding, was being 
shunted into the cookers, passed out on the 
pans, and straightway borne to the powerful 
presses that received the huge, damp, warm 
cakes and squeezed from them the lustrous oil. 
Piollet noticed that the negroes were not sing- 
ing as usual. They were on the job, but they 
were thoughtful. As the two came to the door 
of the engine room, Dave touched the superin- 
tendent's arm. 

"Yonder he is, Cap'n, leaning against that 
window." 

Charlie Piollet saw the negro, but he paid 
no attention to him. What his trained eyes 
saw was that there were more men in the room 



Shadrach and the Fiery Furnace 321 

than was necessary. He asked a hulking 
worker in no uncertain tones what he was doing 
in the engine room when his place was with 
the linters. He looked at a couple of gauges 
on the big engine. He measured with an eye 
of satisfaction the steady, rhythmic rocking of 
the crank throws. Though he seemed preoccu- 
pied, he was aware that all the negroes in the 
room had their eyes upon him. Two of the 
yard workmen had come up on the gangway 
outside the open windows. Piollet could feel 
that all of them were expecting something to 
happen. They were not to be disappointed. 

The burly stranger slouched over to the su- 
perintendent. 

"Is you the boss here?" he asked, with no 
hint of deference. 

Piollet looked him over slowly. The fellow 
had been drinking. He wore a derby hat on 
the back of his head. His baggy suit was in- 
digo in color. His shoes were an angry red. 

"What do you want?" Piollet asked. 

"I wants a job what will pay me good 
wages." 

"What can you do?" 

The negro realized that he was being over- 
heard. 

"Anything I wants to do," he said boldly. 



322 Old Plantation Days 

"We can't make use of your kind here. We 
handle machuiery, and we can't trust it to men 
who drink. You can get out of the mill 
through that door yonder." 

He pointed with his thumb to one of the 
exits, turning at the same time to continue the 
examination of his engine. He opened an oil 
cup, tapped a feed pump, and stooped down 
to study the movements of one of the small 
eccentrics. 

It was not that PioUet would deny a man 
work without good cause; nor was it because 
the stranger looked forbidding. There was 
Ben Jackson, the engineer of the cookers. 
Piollet had taken him straight from the chain 
gang. The superintendent had promised to 
gave him a chance, and the man had made good, 
but Ben had not approached him as this man 
had. Piollet demanded respect from every 
man under him, a respect so natural that a man 
would show it even when drunk. He felt that 
he had no place for this kind of fellow. 

Yet the stranger evidently thought so, for 
he had not moved from his tracks since he had 
been shown where the door was. He stood 
in what might be described as a threatening 
manner over Piollet. Dave MuUin had come 
near. Tt was evident that Dave was excited. 



Shadrach and the Fiery Furnace 323 

Though the men in the room pretended to be 
doing their work, they watched the scene in- 
tently. 

It was a curious crowd that Piollet had to 
handle in that mill. There was hardly a man 
there to whom he had not shown some per- 
sonal favor; supplying this one with medicine, 
showing that one how to start a savings ac- 
count, and giving another clothes that were 
sorely needed. They loved Piollet and feared 
him, but it was in their nature, since they were 
intensely human, always to be eager to accept 
any suggestion of respite from toil, or to listen 
to talk about better wages. Since this was so, 
they were not wholly out of sympathy with the 
truculent figure who was refusing Charlie Piol- 
let's invitation to withdraw. 

Piollet knew something about elementary 
psychology. He knew that his men were ex- 
pecting him to eject the stranger without any 
assistance from them. They would give it if 
he called; but it should not be necessary for 
the man who had ruled them with a sense of his 
superiority to need them now. Piollet knew 
what the situation required. As he stood up 
from examining the engine he let his eye rest 
with cold surprise on the huge negro. 



324 Old Plantation Days 

"Have you come back?" he asked. 
"Couldn't you find your way out?" 

"I hain't never gone. I wants my rights." 
He ended this declaration with an oath. 

"I've got a job for you," said PioUet sud- 
denly. "Come with me," 

The superintendent led the way through the 
door to which he had a few moments before 
pointed. Every eye in the engine room was 
on the pair. The clanking of the great engine 
and even the oily hissing of the presses in the 
next room were more distinct as a hush came 
over the men. Just outside the door the gang- 
way was widened into a platform on which the 
cotton seed was dumped from the cars, before 
being relayed to the seed room. When they 
had come out on this platform, Charlie Piollet 
paused. 

"Now, stranger," he said in a matter-of-fact 
tone, "you are trespassing on the property of 
this mill. There are two ways for you to leave 
this private place. One is along the gangway 
there, and down the road through the mill gate. 
The other is off the edge of the platform here. 
Take your choice, but be quick about it." 

"But where's the job? You can't fool with 
me like this, mister." 



Shadrach and the Fiery Furnace 325 

"Your job, stranger, is to clear out or to 
whip me." 

"I ain't gwine. You has got to — " 

What followed can best be described by say- 
ing that it was an impact. There was a mo- 
ment of furious struggle. There was a throng- 
ing of negro workmen toward the the platform. 
Little Dave MuUin was closest to the two men. 
Suddenly they broke apart; then like sleight- 
of-hand work a burly form was lifted high 
and hurled off into the dripping fog. It fell 
heavily on the railroad tracks below. There in 
the rain it lay still. 

Charlie PioUet, though his great shoulders 
were heaving slightly, walked back, unper- 
turbed, into the engine room. He spoke 
brusquely, yet not without a certain kindness, to 
those whom he saw away from their posts. He 
passed over to one of the presses, dipped a 
finger into the oil bubbling over the grates, 
and tasted it. 

"Cooker's too hot, Fred," he said to the 
pressman. "That cake was scorched." 

Suddenly he was aware of Dave at his el- 
bow. 

"Cap'n," — and the night foreman was apolo- 
getic — "dat man ain't done moved yet — dat 
man you done kill." 



326 Old riantation Days 

"Go down, Dave, and take him out to the 
gate. If he is really hurt, I want to know. 
My object was not to injure the fellow, but 
simply to get rid of him." 

Dave Mullin went about the task assigned; 
and Piollct went over into the room where the 
huge cookers were steaming fragrantly. 

"Too hot, Ben," he said. "Ease her oflf a 
bit. Last cakes were a little scorched. How's 
that sick boy of yours?" 

The giant black engineer eased off the steam 
with the skill of a born mechanic. 

"Better, Cap'n, some better. The medicine 
you bring him done him good. And I's much 
obliged to you, Cap'n, for the pig you done send 
me. Yes, sir," he ended impotently, being un- 
skilful in the matter of giving thanks with the 
lips. 

A few minutes later, as Piollet was. stripping 
off his overalls in the smoky mill ollice, Dave 
entered. 

"Well, Dave, was he able to navigate?" 

"Oh, yes, Cap'n," chuckled the little man, 
"he can cruise 'bout considerable. He's done 
gone out the gate now. He §ays he's gwine 
back Mobile." 

The telephone that seemed forever wanting 
the superintendent, sometimes gave him long 



Shadrach and the Fiery Furnace 327 

distance. Charlie Piollet had hardly finished 
his breakfast at home that morning before a 
call came for him from the mill in Sumter. 

"Hello, Piollet," sounded the voice from the 
sister mill nearly a hundred miles away, "we'd 
like you to run up this morning. We can't get 
our new shredders on the linters to work, and 
we know you have yours adjusted. Can you 
come? Yes. You can get here at 11.40. 
How long will it take? I can't tell exactly. 
We are all balled up on the thing. Yours is 
the only mill in the district that has these new 
things working. You'll come, then? Good! 
I'll meet you." 

Noon of that day found Piollet in the Sum- 
ter mill. His adjustments there, that set the 
glittering new type of shredders merrily whirl- 
ing, chewing with frantic haste and human in- 
telligence the last vestige of lint from the 
cotton seeds, were no sooner completed than a 
day letter was handed him. It was from the 
company's central office in Atlanta. 

"Visit all mills in your district," it ran, "for 
purpose of establishing new linter system. 
Harland takes charge until your return to 
Charleston. Be sure to include Florence, Dar- 
lington, Columbia, Bennettsville, and Orange- 



328 Old Plantation Days 

burg. Stay with each mill until sure shredders 
working well. Wire us as you get each started 
right." 

It was two weeks before he was back in 
Charleston. 

He reached the city at nine o'clock at night; 
but before thinking of going to bed he ran out 
to the mill in his car, interviewed Dave, took 
a careful and fond look at the huge, pulsating 
engine, and greeted the boys singing at their 
work. 

"Call me if you need me, Dave," he said on 
leaving. "The whistle gets me better than the 
'phone." 

But when the great whistle began to shriek 
and call, shortly after midnight, the superin- 
tendent woke slowly to a realization of the 
meaning of the clamorous voice. 

"Trouble again," he muttered. "I believe 
Dave's getting nervous." 

If, however, he had been dubious of the 
necessity for the night foreman's call, all doubt 
was dissipated when he got his car on the road 
for the mill. Far across the marsh-flats he 
saw a strange red glow. 

"Fire ! and at my mill !" he exclaimed, giving 
his motor full power. 



Shadrach and the Fiery Furnace 329 

His car flew along the flat road, dashed down 
the shell driveway of the mill yard, and drew 
up suddenly. Piollet sprang out. 

Running down the gangway, he was met by 
groups of frightened negroes hurrying in the 
opposite direction. One of these he caught by 
the arm. 

"Where is it?" 

'In the seed house, sir. We'se gwine for 
water." 

Dashing through the engine room Piollet 
came to the open doors of the vast room known 
as the "seed house," where all the incoming 
cotton seed was piled. Within it was a roaring 
furnace. The pine flooring, the unlinted cot- 
ton, the stacks of bags — everything was aflame. 

"The sprinklers!" Piollet shouted to Dave 
MuUin who, standing at the head of a line of 
negroes, was dashing bucket after bucket of 
water futilely on the hungry fringes of the 
flames. 

"Something's jammed, sir!" Dave shouted 
back chokingly through the smoke. "The 
sprinklers won't work!" He shook his head 
for emphasis as he was forced to retreat from 
the terrific heat. 

The huge tank above the mill had been de- 
signed to serve just such an emergency as this. 



330 Old Plantation Days 

It was full of water waiting to be released. 
The sprinklers were set to extinguish just such 
a fire as this. Charlie Piollet jerked with 
shrewd haste at the releasing chain-ends. He 
knew too much about machinery to try to force 
his will upon it. The chains would not budge. 
Something had locked the apparatus. Charlie 
saw that no bucket line could ever stop such a 
fire. Already the energy of the men was abat- 
ing. From the seed-house the flames would 
roar on to the mill proper, devouring all in its 
path. The great tanks close by held nearly 
60,000 gallons of oil, the product of months 
of work by the mill. The heat of such a fire 
might mean disaster to them. 

Turning from his hopeless tinkering with the 
chains, Piollet beckoned to Dave. 

"I'm going up," he said to the negro who 
had reached his side, at the same time point- 
ing to the sprinkler rods that ran along the 
floor beams over their heads. "Something's 
jammed. I'm going up to get it loose." 

The foreman began to protest, but Piol- 
let was already halfway up. His powerful 
arms drew him up swiftly and surely. He 
pulled himself over a beam, his hand gripping 
the sprinkler rod. The smoke was stifling. 
Sparks and suffocating waves of heat swiftly 



ShadracJi and the Fiery Furnace 331 

thronged into his face. But he felt his way 
on. Now he was over the fire itself. Behind 
him and below him he could see the upturned 
faces of the terrified workmen. He came to 
where a set of cogs controlled the rods. He 
could hardly see them, but he knew all about 
them. Feverishly his great intelligent hands 
ran over them. Something had told him that 
the trouble was here. It was. Piollet's fingers 
felt a foreign object. It was a crooked twelve- 
penny nail. Dropping from a rafter, or per- 
haps tossed up by the engine belt, it had found 
lodgment in the cogs, blocking the action of 
the sprinklers. 

The man jerked out the nail. Dimly he 
could see Dave MuUin through the red glare. 
He motioned violently for the foreman to pull 
down on the chains. He shouted, motioning 
again. He reeled, clutched for a beam; but 
the smoke blinded him. He missed it, his 
strong hand closing convulsively on air. 
Swooning he fell into the crimson maw of the 
fire. After him came the water, sufl'icient to 
curb the fire slowly, send pufi^s of steam hissing 
toward the roof, to put it out at last; but not 
sufficient to save Charlie Piollet. 

Yet it was Charlie Piollet, the same and not 



332 Old Plantation Days 

the same, who, three weeks later, put out a 
hand from a hospital cot and greeted little 
Dave Mullin who had tiptoed fearfully down 
the big white room. 

Their talk could be of but one thing: the 
fire at the mill. 

"Tell me all about it, Dave. You see, I 
don't even know how it started." 

In his quaint way, Dave gave the superin- 
tendent a full account, ending with a reassur- 
ing, "She's running about as usual, about as 
well as she ever runs when you're away." 

Piollet, whose strength had not as yet come 
back to him, began to feel drowsy. 

"By the way, Dave," he asked, "how did 
you boys get me out of that place? I thought 
I saw Ben Jackson's face — " 

The papers, at the time of the fire, had been 
full of the story of the rescue of the superin- 
tendent from the flames by the daring of one 
of the negro workmen; but Piollet knew noth- 
ing of it. 

"We didn't do it, Cap'n, nor Ben neither. 
It was that Shadrach." 

"Who?" 

"That new man that Mr. Harland done take 
on while you was away to Sumter." 



Shadracli and the Fiery Furnace 333 

''Strange he should risk his life to save me 
when he didn't even know me," PioUet said 
drowsily. 

"He done know you, Cap'n! He tell me 
he wouldn't work for no other man in the 
world but you. Ain't you know him now, 
Cap'n? He is dat man — dat same man you 
done kill." 



XXVIII 

MARGIE HAS A MAN 

ERIC PETERSEN, his wife, Margie, 
and their five small children had taken 
refuge in the tower of the lighthouse. 

"A bad blow, and for sure, Eric," said Mar- 
gie as, with four of her little ones clinging 
about her and her baby held in her arms, she 
looked anxiously through the narrow light- 
house window. 

Below, huddled against the storm, was the 
tiny trim house they had been forced to leave. 
Margie did not fear much for their own safety 
in the stanch tower, but it was a question 
whether their little house could withstand the 
frightful impact of this terrific gale. 

"A bad blow, yes," Eric agreed; "but here 
we are safe, and I am where I can light the 
light. The home, too, will be there when the 
storm is gone," he added reassuringly. 

Yet there was trouble in his deep-set gray 
eyes. He had been through too many storms 
not to have acquired respect for them. 

They were standing on the second floor of 

334 



Margie Has a Man 335 

the lighthouse, twenty feet from the ground. 
By turns the keeper of the light held his chil- 
dren up to the window to see the wild grandeur 
of the gale. During the few hours that they 
had been in their strong refuge, the fury of the 
hurricane had greatly increased. 

There was little to see except rain driving 
madly by. It did not seem to fall; it shot past 
the window horizontally. Beneath its stream- 
ing veil the white house of the keeper gleamed 
pallidly. It stood now in the water; for the 
swiftly rising tide had submerged all the 
island. The myrtles, the only trees on the 
small Island, were blurred and indistinct, though 
now and then, like drowning creatures, they 
tossed their dark wild arms despairingly. The 
vast sea marshes, stretching away behind the 
island, were shrouded and lost. Only the light- 
house stood firm and impassive; it was an out- 
post that could escape no storm, and it had 
been built to stand against them all. Eric 
Petersen knew what he was saying when he 
told his wife that they would be safe In the 
tower. 

"Mother, shall we have to swim?" little 
Margie asked. To swim was as yet one of her 
unrealized ambitions, and the opportunity to 
achieve It now appeared to her to be good. 



336 Old Plantation Days 

"I hope not," the mother replied and put her 
hand on the child's head. 

At that moment, as if to shatter the hope 
thus expressed, the lighthouse trembled wildly. 
Then quickly followed a succession of shocks 
as if some tremendous ram were driving with 
insane malice against the structure. 

"An earthquake, Eric!" Margie Petersen ex- 
claimed. "There was one here before our 
time," she added. 

The keeper did not answer. He ran over 
to the window on the seaward side of the tower 
and peered down through the blinding storm. 
His gaze was fixed for some moments, and his 
wife joined him. Presently he drew her to the 
window and pointed. 

"See it, Margie?" he cried. " 'Tis no earth- 
quake, but 'tis something to batter down our 
tower." 

"I see a dark shape," the woman answered. 
"It is floating. It drives against the tower. 
Oh, Eric, what is it? It looks Hke the big 
sperm whale we saw ten years ago in mid-ocean 
when we came over from Copenhagen." 

"You remember the big cypress log I caught 
drifting — the fine timber that had come down 
to sea from the river back in the mainland?" 

"Yes, and sure; it lay out on the beach 



Margie Has a Man 337 

in the sunshine. The children played on it." 
"And when they slipped over its butt end, 
they slipped six feet to the ground. 'Tis a 
monster of a log. I had it tied with a section 
of steel cable. The tide has lifted it out of 
the sand and has swung it round so that its butt 
end now points landward. The cable is just 
about long enough to let the log reach us. 
Whenever the storm gets the monster lined 
right, it rams us. There it comes now, Mar- 
gie." 

The solid tower shook. 

"She was not built to stand that," the man 
said gravely. "I see a job for me." 

"Oh, Eric, what can you do? You will not 
go out into the storm? Sure, Eric, and the log 
will break loose and float away." 

"I tied it just so a storm like this couldn't 
steal it away from me," the keeper replied. 
"But you — what will you do?" 
"I will go out and untie it," he answered 
quietly. 

"You go, Eric?" the woman said slowly, as 
if in a vision she had divined his fate. "But 
you will not come back. You will go and leave 
us." 

"Margie, I am the keeper," was Petersen's 
reply, "just the same in fair weather as in foul. 



338 Old Plantation Daijs 

I've got to save the tower, and I've got to 
save you and our children, too." 

He looked straight into her eyes as he was 
speaking. They had in life looked too deeply 
into each other's eyes not to see there light for 
all guidance. 

"You got a duty, Eric. Kiss me, and go." 

The keeper took a brief farewell of his wife 
and little ones. 

"You can watch me," he said. 

"Eric! Eric!" cried his wife suddenly. "A 
rope! I tie a rope to you and hold it here." 

The keeper, who was taking off his coat and 
shoes, paused to smile at his wife. 

"You and I cleaned the tower last week, 
Margie," he reminded her. " 'AH this old 
rope, Eric, it must be taken to the woodshed.' " 
He quoted her, laughing and mimicking her 
tone, and made the children laugh. "Not a 
foot of rope in the tower,'' he went on. "Now, 
I go." 

He drew his wife closer to the seaward win- 
dow. 

"I drop down," he explained; "the water's 
nine feet deep now; high tide and storm, too. 
I climb along the log. I loose the cable." 

"And then?" 

"I swim to the tower steps on the lee side." 



Margie Has a Man 339 

His voice was full of assurance; but in his eyes, 
which always spoke the truth, there was a 
doubt. 

"Margie," he said to his little daughter, 
"somebody is going to swim." 

The ready smile for the child died on his 
bronzed face as the huge ram smote the tower 
a thunderous blow. From the great air shaft 
of the tower there came the tinkling sound of 
breaking glass. 

"The light!" exclaimed Margie. 

"One mirror, maybe," her husband admitted. 
"But most likely the big shade. Stand back 
from the window." 

While his wife and children took shelter 
against the curved wall of the tower, the man 
threw up the narrow sash. The hurricane 
rushed in, and he had to fight to make his way 
against it. He reached the sill, with the wild 
wind screaming in his face; then, turning cau- 
tiously, he let himself down outside the tower. 
There he hung by his hands. Behind him Mar- 
gie closed down the sash. He was alone in 
the storm. 

It was an eleven-foot drop into the surging 
waters below that charged against the tower, 
broke against it and rushed onward in furious 



340 Old Plantation Days 

vehemence. The keeper had not only to drop 
into that storm of water; he had to fall near 
enough to the log to catch it, yet in such a 
position that it would not crush him against 
the tower wall. Hanging for a moment in the 
gale, he waited his chance. 

"I'll drop to the end of it the second after it 
strikes!" he muttered. 

The wild rain drove fiercely against him; 
the wind tore at his clothes and sent his shock 
of auburn hair streaming over his eyes. The 
corded muscles of his arms bulged under the 
tension. He wai-ted, watching. 

The monstrous bulk of the log swung in the 
tide. It bumped the lighthouse shaft with lit- 
tle force. But its recoil withdrew it against a 
huge oncoming wave. The enormous rolling 
cylinder of water arrested the ram, poised it 
and drove it with massive strength against the 
tower. Even above the incessant roar of the 
hurricane the keeper heard the dull grinding 
of stone and mortar; but as, a moment later, 
he clung to the cypress upon which he had 
dropped, his half-blinded eyes were not pre- 
pared for what he saw: a great gaping hole 
driven clear through the wall of the lighthouse ! 
Through this breach a storm of salt water was 



Margie Has a Man 341 

rushing in mad triumph; and as Petersen lay 
on the tree trunk, he felt the vast bulk with- 
drawing for another attack. 

"Two more like that last one," he said, "and 
in goes the whole side of the tower. The wall 
is breached — if I'm too late — " 

His face was grim as he turned on the roll- 
ing cypress, clinging with hands and feet to its 
slippery bulk. The coursing waves ran over 
it, plunged clear across it, sped with fearful 
haste along its length, lifted it high only to 
buffet it and sank it as if to drown it. At no 
time was its back wholly out of water, and its 
lone rider went under with it. Once Petersen 
glanced upward at the window above; but he 
could see nothing except a blur of spume against 
the glass. Yet Margie, gazing downward, saw 
him and what he did. 

With waves breaking over him, Eric Peter- 
sen fought his way along the perilous length of 
the log. Its vast bulk wallowed, reeled, rolled, 
turned, sank and rose. The man clinging val- 
iantly to it had two cares: to keep his hold and 
to advance. If he did not advance, the relent- 
less battering ram would complete its work of 
destruction; if he lost his hold, he would lose 
his game, and the game of life as well. Lying 
almost flat, he pulled himself painfully toward 



342 Old Plantation Days 

the place where the cable had been made fast 
in the log. 

At last he came to the end of the steel haw- 
ser, pulled through the heavy galvanized ring 
that was held in place by a huge screw eye 
such as the lumbermen of the Southern rivers 
sometimes use. The keeper sat up on the log; 
grasping the eye of the screw with one hand, 
he worked with the other at the cable. When 
he had, a month before, deftly fastened the 
cable to the great timber he little thought that 
in such a crisis as this he would be struggling 
to unloose it. 

It was hard for Margie to see him, now that 
he was at the far end of the log. But she could 
discern him dimly and fitfully. A.sudden great 
pride in her husband made her lift her children, 
one by one, to the streaming window. 
Whether they saw, she could not tell; but she 
made sure that they heard and understood 
what she said. To each one, as she pointed out 
into the storm, she said : 

"To save us and to save his tower, your fa- 
ther is gone out there. For a father, you got 
a man." 

The last child had been lifted. Margie's 
anxious eyes were fixed on the huge storm- 
shrouded cypress. Suddenly she saw its mon- 



Margie Has a Man 343 

strous bulk, which had poised itself for another 
heavy thrust at the tower, turn slowly away. 
It was swinging in the tide. It was rolling 
over and over. The waves at last had their 
will with it. It was at the mercy of the storm. 
But the figure of the man was no longer visible. 
Somewhere in that gray maelstrom of waters 
he must be struggling. The log passed from 
sight, hurrying off under the blind smother of 
the storm. 

A minute passed, then another. Margie's 
heart beat sickly. The children were aware of 
her terror and clung to her. She knew not how 
to comfort them. Leaving them in a pathetic 
group, she went toward the tower stairs. 
Downward she looked, along the steel shaft. 
The bottom of the tower was full of water. 
The storm howled up at her insolently with 
brutal mockery. 

Margie looked back at the children. Then 
she gazed downward again. Suddenly out of 
the surging water within the tower a form ap- 
peared; a voice called to her. Though her 
senses reeled, she saw and understood. 

"Don't come down!" the voice warned her. 
"Deep water here. I come to you." 

In another minute the keeper of the light 
was with his family. 



344 Old Plantation Days 

"You are safe, Eric, you are safe," was all 
Margie could say. 

"You lost sight of me," he answered. "I 
know. I had to swim under water to the 
tower. Not so stormy as on top," he added, 
trying to smile at his children. "I had to 
swim, little Margie." 

A week later, Avhen people from the main- 
land had begun to visit the lighthouse island 
to see the damage wrought by the storm, many 
of them spoke to Margie Petersen of her hus- 
band and of his deed. She, having a great 
heart but few and simple words, would say, 
happily smiling, "I got a man." 

But there was no need for any words; for 
the light in her eyes was love. 






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